The reading for this week, on time, starts by identifying our need for a way of encountering reality (time) that lets us discover more freedom and satisfaction. It then goes on to reflect on the dynamic of time as something we cannot account for: why there should be a next moment at all. It seems this is simply something given in advance, something we have to accept.
Having made this observation, we have to back off and start again. Instead of a model in which action consists of ‘someone’ doing ‘something’, we can work with a model in which the flow of time is primary. But trying to implement this model immediately brings us in conflict with our sense that ‘I’ am the one who is acting. That conflict is where a lot of the TSK inquiry into time focuses.
The exercises for this week take a less direct approach. They ask us to challenge our usual way of dividing time up into past, present, and future, with ‘present’ being the ‘location’ in time where I am located. Enjoy the opportunity to do this exploration. It invites the experience of freedom that time (and the TSK vision) always offer.
Jack