Moments between Moments

When TSK exercises invite me to look for something, I often find that I can’t find it–and this then seems like the realization that the exercise was aimed at showing me.   Doing this LOK exercise nudged me toward the following thought.  We use the concept of moments in at least two ways: 1/ to analyse time from outside (minutes, moments, years, past, future); and 2/ to describe the dividing line between past and future, as in “present moment”.  But does the present moment really feel like something with edges, separated out from it’s similar neighbors?  Sitting by a flowing stream, we can count the leaves floating by on the surface, but the leaves are not the water.   Time may be both stream and leaves, but counting objects flowing past does not capture the flowing nature of time itself.  Perhaps “Present Motion” is a better phase than “Present Moment” to describe this feeling.  I’ve been experimenting with a different way of doing Kum Nye: instead of counting my breaths (as a way of measuring how long I stay in a position) I pay attention to the breath as In/Out/In/Out.  This seems to help me to feel more present to the vibration of breathing, and less to the index of time (and thus not as motivated to get past any position which feels unwlecome.  –Michael

About Michael Gray

I first started studying TSK in the mid 1980's and have since attended a number of retreats and workshops at the Nyingma Institute, in both TSK and Buddhist themes. I participated in the life-changing Human Development Training Program in 1991, and upon returning to Albuquerque co-founded an organization, Friends in Time (with a friend who has Lou Gehrig's Disease), which continues to serve people with similiar disabilities. I contributed an essay to "A New Way of Being"--the last one in the book--in which I describe how learning to honor who I have been has broadened and deepened my openness to present experience. I live in New Mexico with my wife and two sons.
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1 Response to Moments between Moments

  1. tinac says:

    Hey Michael, thnx for this post…I can really relate to the idea that moments do not have distinct edges; and too, this ‘phantom bridge’ is just that…lol.

    And yet, there are so many layers. I experimented and contemplated the idea of the sound/vision being two separate processes intermingled, and that intermingling being a third…like a backdrop on which all the other is allowed to take place.

    I almost hate to admit it, but it is similar to certain dzogchen thoughts concerning Norbu’s mirror, or Longchenpa’s clouds in the sky…however, what I truly love about TSK, is that it does not depend on other avenues of knowledge or knowing, the vision creates its own without the limitations and attachments that seem to always arise with other spiritual traditions…

    Present Motion is a very interesting idea…there seems to always be motion…even in the middle of stillness…lol

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