Interest does not a moment make

During Sunday’s call, when Jack was presenting the perspective that perhaps it is the span of a particular interest that defines a moment for us, I found myself thinking that there has to be another factor operating.  It seems that the idea of a moment is a corrolary of a prior belief in linear time.  Without such a sequence, how could we mark out movement along that sequence?  Surely changes in interest don’t have to denote shifts in location along a timeline.  They could be experienced like changes in the wind, without disturbing our sense of being continuously present.  Like waves passing under our boat, our gaze looking out over the great expanse of ocean, we could feel the waves and still be in the presence of the ocean.  Concentrating on moments is perhaps like obsessing over waves.  They say that the best way to avoid sea sickness is to gaze out over the sea.  Then our legs grow steady and the rocking deck beneath is is no more accosting that the rhythms of our own walking.  The motions of our journey don’t have to turn time into a series of potholes or security checkpoints. –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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4 Responses to Interest does not a moment make

  1. tinac says:

    correction…

    way should be wave…

  2. tinac says:

    Hey Michael,

    Maybe it is not so much the ‘interest’ that changes, but the focus…I am with you on this idea that we can have several interests within a particular focal point or ‘moment’. Like when we are driving, there are many things we have to focus on while doing so. Or if we are working on a complex mathmatical problem, or writing poetry, or anything.

    When we are focused on riding the wave, that ‘moment’ could last…while each new way would bring a different level of interest, we could still maintain our focus…but when we go splash, the focus is interupted…maybe that is the ‘other’ factor operating. I agree that this ‘idea’ of a regular moment in time would involve the past…but when we become ‘lost in the moment’, so-to-speak, I sense that there might be a freedom from this ‘belief’ as it were…maybe…

    Maybe we can even learn to maintain our focus when we go splash as well…gol…*

  3. David says:

    Hi Michael,
    I’m with Hayward. Love the images. Obsessing is a good word for the steady preoccupation.
    Best,
    David

  4. Hayward says:

    Nice images. Concentrating on moments does seem like obsessing over waves and does seem to make me sea sick
    Thanks
    Hayward

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