Thursday, October 8, 2009

Monk Wisdom Series: Past Perfect, Present Tense


The disciple was sitting staring at the horizon. ‘Sounds’ were mere adjectives, ‘Colour’ the verb and the resultant picture was the noun. Approach of the night was greying the environment, silence was setting in and his eyes were watching the scene change.

Change had always intrigued him and as he thought about it, his mind kept following his eyes. Every change was being registered. His eyes were the medium of collection. Collection of the events. And as he collected he imagined the present slowly becoming the past. Time had very little reference. Every time he registered an event he was experiencing the creation of memory. In a sense, memory was history he concluded.

Then he imagined: every moment he was living there were changes happening - gradually and slowly. No two moments were the same. There was no choice. In a wakened state you ‘will’ experience change. Some notice,others take a while. Seeing is not in a space of time, it is instant. That’s the present - then and there. There was beauty in all this – a beauty that cannot be expressed in words, it is an experience. This experience was pure, there were no thoughts, just observation. Every change we look at in a space of time is contaminated by our consciousness. The inner movement validates every move, every change and every moment. It then adds its version as we age.

At this time he had no questions, no answers….He just enjoyed the experience. Soon the moon came over and provided company to his isolation. Every moment that passed was Perfect, every experience at that moment was Tense and he knew nothing about his future….