Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Marking Time

Today is my birthday. And I find it interesting how we think of some days as different than others, as special somehow. Each new year and birthday bring a lot of this kind of introspection.

We use these days as assessment points. How are we doing? Are we getting to those things on our list? How is my life turning out? Is it a success or a failure?

But of course we are the ones who both set and measure against the standards, even when we don't see that. So, this is more of a test of how we think about ourselves than anything else.

The passing of time itself is just a concept, just one more thought that we use to try to understand our world. Each moment brings us a choice. Do we look off to the imagined future or recreated past? Or do we see the precious beauty of what is right here, right now? There's no right or wrong answer. It isn't helpful to try to punish ourselves into doing more of what we think we should be doing and less of what we thing we should not. All that does is create resistance and suffering.

Instead, moment by moment, we can notice the vastness of what's noticing, and open up to the simple mystery of what is.

Jeff

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