This Very Moment

This very moment is movement. Everything that you perceive is change. There is much written about ‘being in the moment’ or being in the ‘now’ and yet I often wonder if we are clear about what exactly this means. THIS moment is always changing, literally. The very cells in your body are dancing away, changing, as you read these very words.

It takes time to perceive anything, even if just for a split second. An example would be if you were to hear the sound of a car passing by. By the time it takes the sound of the car to reach your ears and then for you brain to interpret the sound, as that of a car passing by, the event itself has already happened. When the registration does occur, you will say that there is a car passing by, when, in fact what you say, hear, see or feel, for that matter, has already occurred.

Clearly, from the point of view of the body-mind, being in the actual present is impossible. At the same time, there is some sort of genuinely different state associated with the words body and mind. On some level, one feels sometimes more ‘in the now’ than at other times and so there is some basis to this. But taking a particular moment and slowing it down drastically, to the point where you could really feel it, is not what I mean. The Now has absolutely nothing to do with anything that you perceive. It is prior to time and as such never experienced by you. To ‘be in the now’ is to be in the always present un-known silence that is beyond description. The now can never be grasped or experienced, or practiced. You can always experience occurrences, sights, sounds and emotions, but

all of these are a happening in time. What is before, during and after? It is the unknown, un-experienced, undivided This.

‘Now’ is the embrace of every happening, like the dark sky that allows for the stars to shine. It is the no-place where all thoughts and words appear, and disappear. It is the unchanging canvas, but to write or say anything further would be to spill more paint