DTS chapter 9 goes over some of the same material as the LOK chapters, but seems to me unusually clear on how we are “stuck” in the present, with no access to past or future.
I want to focus on the discussion on p. 77, and particular the relation between two present moments. For instance, right now I am writing this post, and there is present experience of doing this, which has its own past and future. But if I now shift to some other focus (for instance, imagining what I am going to do when I have finished writing this post, that imagined present, which I will occupy in the future, has its own past and future, which are very different from the ‘present’ past and future (I put this last ‘present;’ in quotation marks because in fact when I return to that present, it is no longer the same as the one I start out with, though perhaps it is best to ignore that complication.)
The reading gets at a similar point when it says that the present moment is really more a ‘being present’. So if we position ourselves at the leading edge of the future, as we have been doing, we are getting ready to be present differently. And the next ‘being present’ will be independent of the previous ‘being present.’ Whether we experience that independence, or acknowledge it, depends on how tightly we are insisting on our own identity.
I hope that gives some background to for the practice of DTS Ex. 13, to which you now might wish to turn.
It looks like we will not have our conference call, because there was not enough interest. Perhaps someone can suggest a way for us to do something more cohesive as a group?
Jack