I have been questioning time for a while. 

After adding 40 more hours to my week by not having employment, I thought that I would have plenty of time to work on my hobbies and get projects accomplished.

But I still do not have as much time as I though I would.  There is always going to be something to fill up the hours.  Even wandering aimlessly takes time.  Spending time wisely takes constant thought and planning.

I want to tell a story I have been pondering for some time.  It came to me from Tom Brown Jr. and an interaction he had with his teacher Stalking Wolf.  It begins with Tom finding his teacher as he is staring at a blueberry bud. Stalking Wolf was going to watch the blueberry bud open into a flower. Tom knew what he was doing, but in true pot-licker form, he goes up to Stalking Wolf and asks “What are you doing?”  Stalking Wolf’s response was “all I am is now”.  Tom is flabbergasted and realizes that he will be exploring that phase for the rest of his life.  Stalking Wolf was not concerned with anything else other then that bud.  He was not going to eat, drink or think until it finished opening.  In a way, Stalking Wolf became part of the bud as it blossomed.  He was so consumed by the miracle of the bud turning into a flower that nothing else mattered.  “All I am is now” is so simple and yet so complex.  . I am trying to learn is how I can live this way.  What does it take to be so awake and alive?  I believe that we are searching for this oneness on the mat

What is it to “wake up”, to “be in the moment” and to be the “now”?  It may mean to give up the past and future and to be only concerned in the moment.  Maybe it is like living moment to moment and forgetting the last to become full present at the current.   This is far easier said than done.  This means letting go of our thinking mind; which, doesn’t want to be let go of.  We can accomplish this through sitting (ZenA school of Mahayana Buddhism emphasizing the value of meditation and intuition.), AikidoThe word "Aikido" is made up of three japanese characters: ai - harmony, ki - spirit, mind, or universal energy, do - the way. Thus Aikido is "the way of harmony with universal energy." and other meditations.  What these tools do is to break down the thinking mind so that it will let go of its death grip. With the thinking mind loosening its grip, the spiritual mind is allowed to grow. Over time, these practices may let us feel and experience instead of constant thought telling us how we are feeling. All of the thinking we do hinders us from truly becoming alive.

A very good teacher is the outside temperature.  Take the cold as an example; we go outside and feel the cold.  We think it is cold and cause our bodies to tense, which in turn makes us colder.  We end up thinking the cold and therefore we must be freezing. If we were in the moment, the cold would not matter.  It just is.  Our thoughts make and keep us colder than we actually are.  We need to transcend distractions, like cold, to be in the moment.  The physical mind is all about limitations.  The spiritual mind only has one limitation that is the imagination.

When we practice zazenMeditation posture and exercise and other meditations, we are trying to empty our cup.  Modern living holds us back from emptying our cup and living in the now.  We are able to still our bodies and clear our minds, but then we return to our entertainment lifestyles and fill the cup right back up again.  This is where I have particular trouble.  I enjoy the radio and movies, but they are not real.  Movies not only take me out of the now when watched, they also have effect me later on.  They take me out of the moment and the ‘now’ for days after.  It happens whenever we think about them again.

We keep another distraction in practically every room, the clock.  Yes the clock is useful, but it also takes us to the future and away from the ‘now’.  We worry about what we have to do and where we have to be.  It helps us create a lot of stress for ourselves by rushing around.  In fact, the mind and spirit do not know human time.  Think of how it can speed up or slow down.  Such distractions as the clock keep us away from the now.

An advantage that Stalking Wolf had was that he was willing to take the time to watch the blueberry bud turn into a flower.  This is what I thought I would have time for when I stopped working.  I was wrong.  What I am realizing is that we must allow time to practice this or any other activity.  It takes a constant, consistence effort to live in the moment with out allowing our mind to distract us.  We need to slow down and forget about the future and the past in order to be at one moment fully.  The now is a place of timelessness.  Time does not exist in the now.  Much of us can not exist in the moment.  This is something placed on my heart and everyone needs to follow what is on their heart.