Our practice invites us again and again into the immediacy of the now. With intimacy, patience and care we come to the presence of this very moment. In every step, every breath, each sensation and fragment of dream we land instantly in the here and now. We are called to revel in the fine substance of this material world. Just on my walk this evening in Santa Fe I found the black feather of a crow. I held it up against the pearly glow of the sky at dusk and thought, how elegant is this world. “More subtle than the subtle is the immeasurable, the mark of liberation, the highest mystery”, says the Maitri Upanishad. In practice we listen to the wisp of our breath delicate as a forsythia petal and feel the tremor of a nerve sudden as the gust of wind.
But what came to me this morning is that the now is not just the now of this moment, but extends vast in all directions. In no way is the now limited. Rather it is a portal into the never-ending. The question becomes how wide is your sense of now? And how long and over what distance does your now travel? Know that the instant you are in now has no limits, no barriers, no walls. “Verily, in the beginning, this world was Brahman, the infinite one, infinite in the east, infinite in the south, infinite in the west, infinite in the north and above and below, infinite in every direction.” You are but a now and I am but a now and together we are connected to the everlasting now.
So in your practice, attend to the texture and the feel of this very moment. Sense its consistency, texture, its scent and feel. At the same time, open your aperture wide to behold the timeless, unending source of it all. Go on, zooming in and zooming out, until you realize the eternal now.
