I find my perception time fascinating, and my perception of the past and future is a clue to my perception of what my thoughts call here and now.
PAST
Something that happened years or decades ago seems like it happened yesterday, and also as if it happened ages ago. That’s fascinating and perhaps also not so surprising.
My images of the past are just that, images. They are literally imaginations.
I imagine my past and call it memory.
In that way, it feels like yesterday. It’s alive and fresh in imagination.
It also feels like ages ago. It feels distant. Like a dream.
The future is the same. It’s literally imagination. It only exists in images.
FUTURE
I can only find past and future here, in my images here and now.
They are guesses about the future, based on my images of the past and present.
PRESENT
This says something about my perception of what my thoughts call the present.
That too is here in my images here and now, along with what’s here in the other sense fields.
It’s happening with and as what I am. It’s happening within and as the consciousness I am. It’s made out of the consciousness I am. It’s made out of this awake space.
MY NATURE
Any exploration of my perception of (what my thoughts call) the past, future, and present inevitably brings me back to my nature.
It points to my nature as this awake space that forms itself into it all.
It points to my even more fundamental nature of capacity for it all.
A capacity that forms itself into it all – consciousness and all it forms itself into.
GAINING SUBSTANCE THROUGH SENSATIONS
If my experience of the past, future, and present happens within and as the consciousness I am, why does it sometimes seem real and with a substance.
It’s because my mind associates certain physical sensations with certain images of the past, future, and present. The sensations gives it a sense of substance and reality. And the images give a sense of meaning to the sensations.
Since sensations come and go, for anything to appear persistently real and solid, it needs to be associated with persistent sensations. And for sensations to be there persistently, there needs to be contraction, a physical contractions of the muscles.
That’s why issues, wounds, and traumas come with chronic muscle contractions. They depend on them. That’s also why issues, wounds, and traumas can be approaches throughout the mind or the body since they are made up of both.
SEED
The seed for this brief exploration was someone posting a Kanzeon Zen Center event photo from twenty years ago , saying it felt recent and also a very long time ago. That’s my experience too of what happened years or decades ago. When I look at my experience, I can find good reasons for that perception.