Philosophy, contemplative practice, and the physics of nature's flow — for finding your own way. For those who don't need the added pressure of another's way, but are curious about ways of understanding, perceiving, and living that mesh with each other — and that only you can make your own.
Each episode is a complete live recording — typically around two hours — opening with a 15-30 minute inquiry into the session's theme, moving into an hour-long guided practice, and closing with comments and discussion. These explorations grew from years of my own searching — trying to fit into practices that promised relief, never quite finding home in any tradition, and stumbling upon a rational basis for getting traction on ways I don't have to try.
As your fellow explorer, I'm Mackenzie Hawkins — researcher in philosophy of physics, contemplative practitioner, and co-author of several books with physicist and Tai Chi Master Dr. Wonchull Park. Drawing from his nowflow philosophy, these series-based explorations use philosophy and physics as ways of understanding and perceiving what's here already.
Not ways to follow, but ways that might help you find your own — for anyone looking to explore beyond the pressures we put on ourselves.
Permission to Be Simply Nowflow: Nothing Left Out - No Time, No Problem?
•Mackenzie Hawkins•Episode 43
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So much of this series has been on the side of: is it really not a problem in physics if there is no such thing as this fundamental time dimension or even a background spacetime container in which change happens?
It seems to me that wherever human beings go, and certainly human beings go into science, they bring shoulds with them. With science as this objective enterprise, it kind of makes sense that we would like a view of reality that is, in a way, a view from nowhere. Why would we want to tie our view of reality to something that is contingent on how fast the observer’s moving, or where the observer is located in space? We want to see that 4D spacetime block from nowhere inside it. We want reality to be invariant. We want it to be what it’s going to be—not a perspective on reality, but reality itself. And the power of mathematics makes it where we feel like it should be that the structure of a mathematical object like 4D spacetime—that’s what physics is telling us is real. That’s gotta be reality.
But Dr. Park just comes at this—the shoulds of how science should be—from the perspective of what is. What is it that we’ve got? What have we got to go on? In physics that at its basis is purely empirical, what we’ve got is experiments. Effects that we can replicate. And anything that relates to a valid or not valid reality view ultimately comes down to: does it have a distinguishable effect? That’s not always what we necessarily want to hear. But it opens the door for even taking our reality views themselves—this is what Dr. Park calls reality view equivalence—and see if they make a distinguishable empirical effect in the setting up, running, and measuring of an experiment. If nothing in experiment—nothing in experience—contradicts my reality view by revealing a distinguishable difference between whether I hold that view or some equivalent view, then it’s a perfectly good reality view by that criterion. It will never lead me astray in anything that can make a distinguishable effect.
What Dr. Park points to is that there’s a minimal information—position together with its changing, right at the moment—that he calls essential information, and the reality that corresponds to it, essential reality. And here’s the key: if any consistent information is added to essential information, there’s no additional effect. You can add the past. You can add the future. You can add dimensional time, or acceleration right at the moment—and none of those have any further additional effect than what’s already covered.
So we’re left with a perhaps shockingly minimal view of reality. We don’t need the entire construction of 4D spacetime. We don’t even need some kind of background structure called time. What we do need is changing that’s inherent, intrinsic, to just this moment—relational, relative changing, in 3D space. So there’s changing spatial relations, and that can be complete.
Considering this essential reality as the whole reality is the nowflow view. We could hold this view and never encounter a contradiction, so far as we know.
IThere’s no effect left out. There’s no effect that’s left over, left lingering, left partially here and partially not. Think about the Zen enso circle. Or Dogen—entirely worlding the entire world with the world. This is whole. Nothing left out. Nothing left over. This is it.
By showing how one moment is sufficient, essential reality gives us this option for a simpler view of reality that’s both consistent with physics and helpful in living. That’s the option.
No Time, No Problem? An Honest Look at “Timelessness” in Physics and Living
What if there’s no time—and that’s not a problem for physics? What if there’s no time—could that be a solution for our suffering?
Rather than offering answers of what to think, this series offers ways of thinking that can move us past the pressures we put on ourselves: from the “should” of trying to “be present” to the “should” of being 4D spacetime worms to be compatible with relativity! Somewhere between those “shoulds,” I got stuck until physicist and Tai Chi Master Wonchull Park showed me how to think about nature simply, livably. Each session includes an hour-long meditation practice, where we get to try on different conceptions and perceptions of time to discover how equivalently valid options that physics provides can impact our levels of illusion and freedom. We’ll be reading together from a few sources—such as Wonchull Park’s Essential Reality & Time, Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time, Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now, Dogen’s Shobogenzo Uji—to deeply question the role(s) of time in our lives. Looking forward to our discoveries.
So welcome. Welcome to this actually our sixth in this series of No Time, No Problem. We have we have covered quite a bit so far, and much of it has been on the side of is it is it really not a problem in physics if there is no such thing as this fundamental time dimension or even a background space-time container in which change happens. And of course, I probably could talk until I'm blue in the face and not really do a topic like this justice. I feel like if there's we said in the beginning, we're looking at least I didn't even realize I was looking for this until I met Master Wanchal Park, physicist and Tai Chi Master, that more than answers, that some of what I was looking for was ways of thinking, ways of from the inside out being able to make more sense of my own experience. And that was even on a very personal level how I became interested in the history of science. I got really interested in Thomas S. Kuhn's structure of scientific revolutions because, in a way, in my life, I felt like I had gone through my own paradigm shifts. And I was just very interested in how we can have these ways that we just assume. We don't even think of them as ways of thinking or ways of perceiving. And then it's possible to come at it from a different perspective, a different angle, a different question. And that lets us see what we were kind of all arranging in this one way, that it's possible to also arrange it in quite a different way. And so we'll we'll get into in today's session more of the core of what Wanchel Park allows us to kind of play with as a very interesting take on science, on experience, on what we've got to work with. And I believe, but don't ever hold this, hold me to this. I believe that in a way this can be the kind of the first half of the series. No time, no problem, where we were really more looking at the science side. And after today, seeing what it's like with these options that we can adopt as you know, rationally minded, maybe even scientifically minded human beings, and then seeing what can be more effective in meditation, in living, in helping us be human beings in the uh tremendous loads of suffering of all kinds that we can experience as human beings. And many of you already know that some of what this enables is to uh, yeah, it's a real kind of empowerment, I would say. I don't often use that word, but an empowerment to think about the shoulds. So we'll get into those slots when we uh go more into some say spiritual teachings and how we uh should uh relate to our suffering or various shoulds at a very personal level.
SPEAKER_01
But it also seems it seems to me that wherever human beings go, uh and certainly human beings go into science, that uh they bring shoulds with them.
SPEAKER_02
So even as a contrast, as we were exploring some of the what would be like to live through this lens of eternalist 40 space-time where the smallest sliver of us is in the present moment. And and why why why does that even have some quite maybe substantial appeal for a view in science and then a view adopted into philosophy, a view then adopted maybe into our lives? And one way to approach it is to see that like any human endeavor, there can be some shoulds that that creep in, and so with science as this objective enterprise, maybe another time, we'll say for another time how uh Wanchill talks about what objective uh can mean in this context. But yeah, it kind of makes sense that we would like to be able to have a view of reality that is in a way a view from nowhere. Why would we want to tie our view of reality to something that is contingent on, for example, how fast the observer is moving or where the observer is located in space. We want to see that 4D space-time block from nowhere inside it. And then we as we also talked about last time, you know, the the way that you can translate between different observers and their experiences is there is something that they're gonna agree upon. It's the space-time interval, not space, not time, but space-time interval is gonna be invariant. And so there's that way in which it can take that idea of space-time and like, yeah, we want reality to be invariant, we want it to be what it's gonna be, not a perspective on reality, but reality itself. And so, again, that that brings to the fore, and then in some ways, the the power of mathematics can make it where we feel like this, even we think it should be, that that the structure of a mathematical object, like 40 space-time, like that that's what's real. And even that's what science is saying is real, that's what physics is telling us is real, as this invariant view from nowhere, mathematical structure.
SPEAKER_03
That's gotta be reality.
SPEAKER_02
And that can, you know, that can make so much sense in a way that it almost can feel like what science is. That's that's the way physics is and Dr.
SPEAKER_03
Park just comes at this through.
SPEAKER_02
Yeah, not the shoulds of how science should be, but what is it that we've got? What have we got?
SPEAKER_03
What have we got to go on? What have we got to go by?
SPEAKER_02
And in a view of physics as its basis, as as purely empirical, meaning that what we've got is experiments, what we've got is effects that we can replicate and then be able to model and say something about. But it all comes from yeah, the experimental effects that make a difference, that are distinguishable, and that anything that relates to a valid or not valid reality view ultimately comes down to that basis of does it have a distinguishable effect? Is it truly an empirical matter in this empirical basis for physics as an empirical endeavor?
SPEAKER_03
And that's not always what we necessarily want to hear, but it opens the door for even taking our reality views themselves, and this is what uh Dr.
SPEAKER_02
Park calls reality view equivalence. We can take our reality views themselves and see if they make a distinguishable effect.
SPEAKER_03
A distinguishable empirical effect in the setting up, running, measuring of experiments.
SPEAKER_02
So we'll go to we'll actually go to the appendix of essential reality and time. And this is a newer edition of the appendix, and you can always go to these are freely offered as PDFs, you can always get the latest reality view equivalence and relativity. And we'll actually just stick with Newtonian for today.
SPEAKER_01
I'll I'll leave the relativity aspect for another time when you've got plenty to talk about today.
SPEAKER_02
But in an empirical science, when two different conditions lead to identical experimental results, they are empirically equivalent. Examples of this empirical equivalence are the Galilean and Einstein equivalence principles. As a purely empirical criterion, empirical equivalence should be applied generally even to reality views. Here we will first apply reality view equivalence to Newtonian mechanics, and then its application is extended to relativity. We'll consider reproducing an experiment in the regime of applicability for Newtonian mechanics with a now shape and now flow reality views, where the now shape view is insufficient, and by adding one more information, the now flow view is sufficient. What are we talking about? The now shape view, which is only position at a moment. So that would be like a ball leaving your hand, and you only know the position of the ball. Lacks the full initial conditions. Maybe you even remember this from some high school physics or getting some flashbacks. You know, the way that you can predict the trajectory of a ball is if you yeah, you need to know its height off the ground, for example, but also need to know its velocity. What's the velocity, what's the speed, and what's the direction that it's leaving your hand from? And with that, position and velocity was called initial conditions. You can predict the trajectory of the ball. So the now shape view, which is only positioned at a moment, lacks the full initial conditions. An observer experimenter setting up an experiment with this reality view. So if you're testing this reality view out, and you have the view of the reality's just now shape. It's just the position, just the configuration of things at a moment. You try and replicate this experiment, you're not going to produce the same results as the standard 40 spacetime interpretation.
SPEAKER_01
Maybe I was really like throwing that ball, really, with uh a lot of oomph, a lot of velocity.
SPEAKER_02
But if all I know is uh well, actually, it's not even a matter of what I know. What I take to be reality at a moment is just position. So if I'm replicating that, I'm like, oh, just tell me what was the position of the ball when when you were starting your experiment.
SPEAKER_01
Okay, great. I'll replicate your experiment. And then you just maybe give it a little bit of velocity.
SPEAKER_02
It's not the same results. So this is a different empirical effect. I mean, this is it's such a simple idea in a way, but you never have seen someone fold into experiment itself, the reality view that you're holding, and seeing what, if any, empirical effects it has. So the now shape view is therefore not equivalent and not a valid reality view. But if one more information, just one, which is velocity at a moment, is added to this reality view, then it is the full initial conditions. And that's what we call the now flow view. An observer experimenter reproducing any experiment with a full initial conditions reproduces the same experiment with the same results as the standard 40 spacetime interpretation. This initial conditions information is sufficient, and both components are needed for a valid reality view. And then goes on to talk about.shape.
SPEAKER_01
This will come back in our meditation, so we'll be trying some of this out.
SPEAKER_02
We have now shape, which is the sense of reality, is just the configuration or position of things at a moment. And what's key is that is an insufficient reality view, according to physics. It's not valid, it's not equivalent to say the standard 40 space-time interpretation. Well, as we saw, if we added one more piece of information for the now flow view, then that does become a sufficient reality view. Both those components, position and information or change information more generally, are necessary. So it's also giving you just what is necessary for a valid reality view. And that's what we call the now flow view if both of those are present.
SPEAKER_03
So that's kind of interesting. We're thinking of velocity changing as necessarily inherent and part of the present moment.
SPEAKER_02
Since initial conditions are the necessary and sufficient conditions for empirical equivalence, we can refer to this initial conditions information as essential information. The reality corresponding to this essential information is essential reality. Considering this essential reality as the whole reality is the now flow reality view.
SPEAKER_03
Experiments that can be reproduced, effects that can be distinguished,
SPEAKER_02
And how essential information and reality view of essential reality that contains the essential information is yeah, that's that's it goes on to say that that's going to give us actually a class, not just like, oh, this is the right reality view, but it gives a whole class of reality views that are all going to be empirically equivalent. Because this is the key. If any consistent information is added to essential information, there's no additional effect, since essential information already covers the whole effect, so you can add more. You could add something called dimensional time, you could add another piece of information like acceleration right at the moment, and none of those actually had any further additional effect in what's already been covered by the now flow essential reality view.
SPEAKER_03
So essential information is position and change information.
SPEAKER_02
And for any of you who might be uh if you're a little more steeped in calculus, for example, you might be like, wait, wait a second. Hold on, isn't that change information? Isn't velocity that's just I mean, that's DXDT. So how is it that you're not just smuggling in this time that you say that is actually not essential, not part of essential reality? So, one of the helpful things about just getting clear on that is essential information that is necessary and sufficient is that we can also take another look, we can take another peek at how do we represent that essential information, and we've already gone through one step of this, which is to see velocity not as me changing relative to an abstract external uppercase t time, but to take the relational sense of change where changing is a relation.
SPEAKER_01
So as I'm breathing, speaking, and moving, it's in relation to the second hand as another thing that is changing and moving, and this is not the easiest case to see, but you could see, or maybe even just take the external part of the second hand and then a part halfway through, and you could see how there would be a ratio of comparative changing of a half just as that's going around, and so philosophy is these ratios of comparative changing, can be represented as that, and just for the completeness, because it might be like, well, wait a second, you know, changing is so much of a sense of that we experience change as difference, we experience finite change as a before and an after, even going all the way back to Aristotle, and that there's some difference between those two moments, two moments in time, and that's what changes, and even in calculus, like when you take the derivative underpinning that is the definition of the limit, which still involves two they call it arbitrarily close delta and epsilon, they can get arbitrarily close, but you're still talking about neighborhoods of intervals.
SPEAKER_03
And so what Dr.
SPEAKER_02
Park further, I don't know what the correct word is, proposes, offers I mean it's just there, points to is that in terms of representing this change information, you can do it in terms of the integral, not the derivative, and the integral has that sense of where if velocity is just the integrand, so it's what you integrate to get the next position. If it's just the integrand, then it really is just at a moment. This ratio of comparative changing is intrinsic to an instant. Changing that's intrinsic to an instant, and that that actually accumulates the differences that we then can perceive, and that comes first, first there's this integration-like unfolding where everything just is where it is and is changing velocity as that integrand, and then that accumulates, and then we're like, ah, there is a difference. My hand was here and now it's there, but where this integrand picture gives us this possibility that it really is where it is at each moment.
SPEAKER_03
Now flow.
SPEAKER_02
That flow is not this blur between moments, but flow can be entirely, inherently, intrinsically part of a moment, and not in an abstract way, but part of the being of each thing in each moment.
SPEAKER_03
So if changing can be inherently in each moment, and that's enough. That's sufficient. Now flow gives us the essential information.
SPEAKER_02
Nothing else can actually add an additional effect, according to all the empirical knowledge that has become embedded in physics and physics models.
SPEAKER_03
Then there is this there is this way that no time is not a problem.
SPEAKER_02
This is the end of chapter six in the section called Time. In physics as well as in our living, we may usually construct a view of 4D space-time so that we think we're managing space and time. Dimensional time, which extends beyond a moment, is not part of essential reality, though, and isn't required for the effects of time. In this way, dimensional time is non-essential, which could be interpreted as there's no dimensional time.
SPEAKER_03
No time, no problem.
SPEAKER_02
Instead, what is necessary and sufficient for all the effects of time is essential reality with its comparative changing. The comparative changing of a clock in essential reality gives time values as quantitative information for the story past, present, and future about changes. All of essential reality time is part of essential reality, even as time values quantify the changes beyond the essential reality of space and changing at this moment.
SPEAKER_03
So all the effects are covered. No time, no problem. And we are left with what are we left with? We're left with a perhaps shockingly minimal view of reality. We don't need to have the entire construction of 40 space-time.
SPEAKER_02
We don't even need a some kind of background structure called time, whatever.
SPEAKER_03
But that we do need in this minimal view, we do need changing that's inherent, intrinsic to just this moment. Relational, relative changing in space in 3D space, and there's no need of another dimension. So this changing spatial relations can be complete. We could hold this view of reality and never encounter a contradiction so far as we know, according to physics. Or left partially here, partially not. We started out with maybe I think it was session two entirely worlding the entire world with the world.
SPEAKER_02
And it includes the being of what is, and the being of what is includes the flow of what is this the understanding that can allow us to do the kind of at least in the direction of the full reclamation from abstract time of flow and blur and sense of something separate from this moment that might be affecting us or that might have an effect or that we might need to include in our reality.
SPEAKER_03
Nothing left out. Nothing left over. This is it.
SPEAKER_02
Feel like I've been talking for forever. Good amount of forever, my goodness. I might stretch for a moment. Probably also some moving meditation. There's a lot to get to explore in this sense of this wholeness of now flow.
SPEAKER_03
I always find it so helpful.
SPEAKER_02
We'll do a more abbreviated version of it, but when I meditate, I just go through what I call the foundations, whatever adventure I might be itching to go on in the practice. Certainly, there's a lot of richness here in this wholeness of now flow. That if I take the time to go through the foundations, which are actually the three mutual whole qualities of NowFlow that I've integrated into my meditation practice, that it just gives me the fuller capacity to explore what it is that I'm wanting to explore, and that the more I do the foundations, the more I feel like I've honed this kind of instrument of more just feeling the way things are, the less the way I think they are.
SPEAKER_03
And so can begin by just closing the eyes coming into more of the immediacy of experience. By noticing contact seat on chair or ground. Hands on lap. And letting there be a sense of resting into that support, laying down, laying down hands and feet, and seat and whole body to the support of what's beneath and letting yourself actually receive that support. Wherever it is maybe easier for you to feel hands seed or feed, and just acknowledging the togetherness of that connection. That it's our story that we lay down and then we receive the support.
SPEAKER_02
But the togetherness is immediate, actually inseparable.
SPEAKER_03
Not becoming just another floating concept that applies to hands on lap in every part and particle of physical body interacting with each other. Of those parts and particles of air coming in and out and interacting with your nose. Oh, at a moment.
SPEAKER_02
Good luck with that. Setting you up for failure. Lovely thing to do. We can go ahead and what it's like to make the interval smaller and smaller. Your forehead become wider and wider even as smaller and smaller into the interval.
SPEAKER_03
Noticing the smallest night change difference. You're at your nose in time. That whatever is inherently includes the flow of changing before perception of it. Sometimes Master Park even talks about it that way. Along with the breath of air. Well of release.
SPEAKER_02
With a kind of attunement to that sense of the space just beyond each of the fingertips.
SPEAKER_03
And feeling a slow from the space beyond each fingertip. The edge of the fingers. And between all the fingers. Along with the fingers, even letting ourselves feel that sense of space between the palm of our hands and the ceiling above our hands. And to the front of the room. All at once. Totally without any exception. Nothing partial about it. And even just taking one of your hands and beginning to move it very slowly. Move any way it wants to move.
SPEAKER_02
Maybe noticing where the partial the incompleteness, the something left over, the something left out begins to creep in just in the slowest movement.
SPEAKER_03
And then maybe just pause the hand for a moment and spread the fingers, feel the immediacy of space. As simple as space. All the spaces between your fingers, the tips of your fingers, palm of your hand holding the space. And letting yourself feel your whole body. No different than your hand. Your whole breathing body. Blurring it. It's comfortably complete in each moment.
SPEAKER_02
It is something we understand and then open to and appreciate in whatever way is accessible to us.
SPEAKER_03
And gently open the eyes. Letting yourself more see the space between the space between your body and the front of the room. Even in a way, the space behind you. And how all that space envelops your breathing body. The simplicity of space. Changing spatial relations.
SPEAKER_02
A gentle circular emotion with arms, both arms, like they're embracing a large sphere in front of them, and then coming down. And just go ahead and interlace the fingers for a moment.
SPEAKER_03
And in the completeness of that circle. Nothing missing. Nothing left out. Circle wouldn't be a circle. And then separating the fingers again. And continuing in the movement. And that wholeness is with us always. Sometimes it might be easier to feel than others. All that's needed for all the effects, so far as we know, is these changing spatial relations where no other moment, no other world is needed. An emotion, thought that in a way would like to be held by the completeness of changing spatial relations just at a moment. And feeling the space of the room is wholeness. Perhaps I should say the now flow of the room is wholeness. Now flow of the body It's 3D changing spatial relations. And how within that field of experience there's these currents of information, awareness, healing, thinking.
SPEAKER_02
I belong to more than just this moment.
SPEAKER_03
My effects are smeared out in time. I could not be complete in just the flow of just this moment. All that can have effect can be affected. And even our story, past, present, future. And even the way we quantify changes, measure them. Tick marks on our inner timeline. All of that is right here right now in changing spatial relations. What if you are all in this moment together with everything else?
SPEAKER_02
If everything is now, then there's nothing in reality outside of just this moment. Now in this way, the view of reality as now flow naturally lessens the illusion of separation from now flow.
SPEAKER_03
It's all just at one moment now that includes the flow of changing.
SPEAKER_02
By showing how one moment is sufficient, essential reality gives us this option for a simpler view of reality that's both consistent with physics and helpful in living. Next time we'll go more into effects and what is effective, and would love to have discussion here with you all about what stood out for you in today's exploration of this question of time and how it led actually to us not talking about time whatsoever. It's actually what we began with in our first session. So let me come up a little closer to y'all. David, hi, Steve, hello, Mary, hello. Mary and Steve, are you uh new here? Let me know. Ken, first time here. Hello, welcome. Claire, hello. We have quite a few people, I think might be new. Saul, welcome back. Found it. Yes, you found essential reality in time. Okay. So glad you found it. Ella, welcome. Ella says, how cool, I checked you out. You went to Princeton. Yes, I did. You checked me out. I hope I checked out. I checked out okay. Uh Archer, permission. Hmm.
SPEAKER_03
Archer, trust, relax. Yeah. Be curious more of the um.
SPEAKER_02
Permission is a is a theme that comes up in these series and even in how we relate to uh our reality views. Archer, what I get and got out of the few moments I was here.
SPEAKER_03
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02
I was actually talking with Wanchel about this earlier today, about what it's like to practice with a reality view that supports you, that you can understand, and it's reasonable, and it's not like a Zenko on, like we joked earlier. Um versus when we are practicing more from a sense of method or technique. Hey, this helped these, you know, ten thousand other people in a statistical study, and so it should help you.
SPEAKER_03
Um that's even the more the modern day version.
SPEAKER_02
Um not that we can't use techniques and use methods, it's certainly see I I use a lot of meditation techniques and practices and tricks and tips I've learned along the way. But it's also so interesting to feel like we have that permission to actually just rest a little bit more into the reality the way it is. Sometimes techniques and methods make us feel like we need to be different than we are.
SPEAKER_01
So what I like to feel is like that space and then just all these changing spatial relations, and like whatever I do, even if I was to sprint in a hundred meter dash, I can't escape from all these changing spatial relations, even the most stressful thought I have that capacity to be fully held.
SPEAKER_02
Is always fully held. The completeness of each moment.
SPEAKER_01
Emily writes, pink elephants on parade in my head today.
SPEAKER_02
So I can learn to let them march on by. Yeah. So mean to be like, no time, see, no time, no pink elephants, and they were all thinking about pink elephants.
SPEAKER_03
I feel like I said this even in the very first session, but man.
SPEAKER_02
It makes it easier, I find, in my own experience, this sense that it's I can have this permission to relax into the wholeness of just this one moment, and that that that's enough to hold whatever is going on. Don't have to take my suffering and smear it out and past in the future. Even when I do that in my mind, it's still all in the flow of this moment. And I think we'll probably even be getting into a little bit of how that happens not only in our conscious mind, but how much we do that just in constructing our whole world and our whole way of managing the world. So we're not on a uh tear here to try and get rid of anything, but maybe even just to find some support for kind of gentleness with ourselves.
SPEAKER_03
That's not about getting it right, but more just this way of I guess getting it more real.
SPEAKER_02
Something that's been coming up a lot for me in my practice, just being real with what is here in the moment. Swiss R. Aloha. Always good to see you, Swiss R. Virvain.
SPEAKER_01
Exceptionally reasonably. Uh far more pleasant to read a book than stare at a PDF on a screen.
SPEAKER_02
The language and logic are clear as a bell, and it brings a light touch to a weighty subject. Very accessible and warmly recommended. Thank you. Yeah, I think it's I think it's like seven dollars. So it's totally up to you, but we do also make the the PDF freely available. So it's all up to you. So Sarah says thank you. Emily says, love that not getting anything right, just getting it real. Yeah, and uh maybe you all could even tell from my countenance, you know, getting it real can be can be tough. Can be can be really tough, and yet there's something about making contact with what's real that has a has a intrinsic kind of like ah to it. And so some of what all of the this talk of time and bringing ourselves along for understanding and being open to even this idea that we could have this reality view where a moment is complete, it's complete and it's dynamical. Uh the dynamics of change are fully right in that moment. It's not a now shape, it's a now flow. And so that when I'm you know, when I'm making contact and and and you know, getting it real, I have more of that support. That's I think some of what I'm trying to point to with like the sense of it's just easier, not that it's easy, but it's easier. It's like you have that support of like it is this moment, it's not my whole 40s pink time war, fortunately. It's this all the effects are in this moment, and all that I can affect is in this moment, and it is the cliche, but it's also just something that really you can begin to just be like, this is complete, entire world worlding with the world, like this is this is it. David says it's so easy to slip into a regimented practice expecting a good outcome without just finding what works for you, and that is usually something much simpler and more easeful. Just being aware of your own space and not shoulding, yeah. I wish there was a way to do this more where um I'm actually wondering about some kind of a session where people come on and be like, this is what is coming up for me. A meditation talk show. No, what's it I don't not even know what it's called. But like they come on, they say, This is like this is what's coming up for me. And and and where it's like we actually talk about. it and talk about what practice practice would be what they need in the moment and where each person then develops their sense of knowing themselves knowing what they need knowing the repertoire of like the ways of understanding and the ways of perceiving and the ways of living that can help but letting that be part of the practice of you know you get to you know you not that you get to but it I think ultimately each of us comes to this is what I need in this moment I know me I'm the only one who really knows what's going on with me and from my own explorations from my own experience this is what I need in this time and it's just so easy to I think accumulate a lot of what works for other people and that's why you know for for whatever it is that you're coming or experiencing here to take that take that time to reflect on what you what it is that you want to take away um what's the toolkit that's being added here to your toolbox I guess multiple toolboxes and then um and then you're playing with it on your own wielding it on your own so that you come to have that sense of this is not something that someone just told me but it's something or that I follow along to but it's something that I can try on and apply in the way that works for me. And that would be my great great wish above all else I think we'll be doing more sense of application in the sessions to come. So we'll do some more readings and some more applications and and see yeah how can all of this about time really touch us in our human lives and maybe even deeply touch this whole matter of self and suffering. So best to you all and thank you again for for this opportunity to to explore and live this together by take care oh one second David says I'm so much more aware of not only myself but my own space and the space around me now than I was before your session here. Thank you.
