I enjoyed this exploration very much – thanks for the recordings. They are my lifeblood, because, having a chronic illness and the call being at 3:00 a.m. Sydney-time, I’m not likely to join you on the phone.
So, in response to the experiment on ‘a moment of time,’ I ask can such a moment be experienced independent of the intention that comes with such attention? I saw, with this experiment, that a moment in time includes the shaping elements of attention and intention. Jack said: “A moment in time constitutes what matters to me.†What matters to me constitutes any moment in time. Very much centred on the self, as Jack said.
Jack asked, “What’s given, in this moment of time? What is the world, the reality, that is constituted in this moment in time?”
It seems to me, that the person I am, who is holding the question, is included in the moment of time. For me, this opens a possibility of a bigger Implicit ‘time.’ That is, there is some kind of ‘occuring’ which gives rise to the one who is in the process of investigating the question, “What is given in this moment of time?”
Similar to Jack, if I had any sense of past or future, they were present as a referring of a kind enacted from the base of this moment of time.
Perhaps Jack’s way of saying this (which I am saying about the ‘higher’ implicit order) is to say, “Our sense of ‘given-together’is something that is broader than… or maybe you could just say: it operates in a different dimension than our usual understanding of past-present-future….â€
In this way, it’s not comprehensive to say that time is either objective or subjective. It is certainly shaped as  by our interests, by our senses, and experiences, memories, and so on. (Subjective, objective, peripheral). But it is ‘more’ than that, too.
If we ask about this conversation where having, or my writing this, then we hypothesise – or perhaps we, as a working basis, provisionally designate ‘successive moments in time’which we creatures share. But such moments can’t be ‘proven’ to be independent of our attention. On the other hand we can’t have a ‘subjective’moment of time, without some referent – something to refer to, something ‘objective’ – the ‘more,’ which I’m calling the implicit ‘occuring.’
Christopher.
Hey Christopher,
I went into this practice as a ‘sinking into’ what was present and a ‘letting go of’ interpretations, even the ‘idea’ that there was a ‘self’ or an ‘intention’ of experience really. I played with the ‘idea’ that ‘I’ was sinking into time or some aspect of it. I had a little difficulty when it came to this idea of thinking of myself as a knowing, and the object as space, and the interaction as time (as the practice suggested)…so instead, ‘I’ just closed my eyes and felt all the intention and attention melt into this ‘feeling’ that was open and relaxing…not really going anywhere, but moving deeper and deeper into whatever it was…
Time is mysterious and intriguing…if time is the interaction or play of awareness or knowing with all appearance or arising (which would include our thoughts), then maybe it is not time or the moment that moves, but our attention or focus (our knowing) that is moving or interacting with whatever is arising within that space of knowing or awareness…iow, time allows for this movement or stillness of being or knowing to take place…maybe…lol…but it would seem that none of any of it could take place without the three…time, space, and knowledge…they seem to feed off of and into each other…
Sorry to hear about your chronic illness. TSK has been very healing in that regard, for me at least. I wish you well, and hope that one day you can join us online…
Much love…Tina