Here and Now Revisited
Certainty, Solidity, Physical Ambiguity and Our Reclaiming of Personal Space
Some Serious Questions
Our Min Jie practices and investigations can bring up some serious questions around what it means to be here now.
Especially questions like ‘what is here?’ and ‘what is now?’
These ambiguities arise on a philosophical level, and also in a physical sense. When you begin to experience how little of your body you actually inhabit at any given time, plus the amount of focus and energy it requires to even begin to get out of your imagination and simply observe your bodily sensations, only to discover how long it’s been, if ever, since you’ve inhabited your physical space, even the limited physical space of your body, well, it’s daunting. But it’s also very rewarding in some strange way.
The Long Process of Reclaiming
Again, the real whammy happens when somebody who is slightly more practiced than you are comes along and demonstrates that it’s pretty simple for them to temporarily occupy and control the physical space that you previously assumed you inhabit, but for many ostensibly practical purposes, don’t.
This is when you begin to understand how much of the physical, emotional, mental and energetic space that you believe is yours, isn’t.
A natural and healthy response to this awareness is to begin the long process of reclaiming at least a portion of these spaces for yourself. This is one of many happy outcomes of our Min Jie Foundations practice.
Connections Intrinsic to Time
“Now” is similarly infused with connections and associations from many other times. These connections are both intrinsic to time itself and also contain a dense overlay of personal interconnections that are often infused with an apparently infinite array of emotional and mental colorings that distort, yet must be included, in the qualities of the moment. They are indistinguishable from the moment and make up describable, even quantifiable, sections of its unique topography.
Intersecting Moments
Each of us is living in a different moment. Yet our moments can intersect, even across time. For example, this moment as I am writing is touching your moment as you are reading, Understanding may come now and/or far in the future. Are these moments different or are they the same?
Moments of divine mantrams uttered at the very beginning of creation continue to echo through practitioners of all ages in a single moment of expression.
Or does it work the other way around?
Certainty, Solidity and Objectivity
There is very little certainty, solidity or objectivity to being here now, but some people are much better at it than others. With practice, we can get better at it than we were before, at least until luck or fate take it away.