Assignment, Week 4

Assignment 2, Session 2.

 The assignment for week 4 invites an inquiry into how our understanding of time affects whatever practices we may have.  Does meditation help us to rise above lower time?  Does lower time limit the potential benefits of meditation?

 One thing is certain: when we have breakthroughs of wonder, realization, delight, sudden understanding, and we try to repeat the steps we think we took to get there, the spark rarely kindles again.  All I can do is feel appreciation for the light that shone into my life and the knowledge I carry forever after that there is more to experience than what I am able to see when I am depressed, discouraged, and distracted.  I may never revisit the wonderland that opened those other times, but like a melody that is introduced in the first movement, rises close to the surface in the second, and in the third bursts forth triumphant—life can be changed in a single instant.  And then again in another different moment.

 In a way it is obvious that meditation cannot in itself melt the pedestrian habits of the mind that we bring with us into meditation. But if the stillness that can visit when we set aside time to just be with our breath lets us see more deeply into what it means to be alive, then all bets are off.

 I’ve been contemplating lately why it is that TSK does not speak of a soul yearning to return to the vast ocean of the divine.  Could there ever be a TSK anthem celebrating the yearning of the spirit to return home?  TSK seems to invite a quiet recognition that we have always been home.  With no separation, no identified personality to feel lost and alone, will someone please tell me who I am. 

–Michael Gray, 11/30/13