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.
A Tantalizing Solution to All Suffering: If Only - No Time, No Problem?
•Mackenzie Hawkins•Episode 45
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So today we are into the second meaning of No Time, No Problem, which is: Is there some way where, if there's not this sense of time, then for us as human beings, there's no problem? In the sense of freedom from suffering. Maybe of the kind of mental extra affliction, dukkha, dissatisfaction, that can be quite enmeshed in the sense of the past — memories of what's happened to us — and the anticipation of the future.
One of the modern-day spiritual teachers who has emphasized this aspect and is quite famous is Eckhart Tolle, in The Power of Now. For those of you who are not as familiar with his story, it begins with this very personal experience, a matter of a transition that happened in a short period of time, where he went from real depths — some of the utmost of suffering — and then experienced this shift. Then he needed to find a way to explain it, put into words, to share with others this highly subjective experience. On the cover of his book: over 15 million copies sold. I'm sure it's many, many more now. And I can almost even just feel the impact of so many people finding, relating to this book, to the message of this book, and their lives being impacted by it.
And I held a copy of this book over and over again 25 years ago, and I was not one of those people who connected with it. I actually wasn't able to finish the first couple of chapters. Even the former news anchorman Dan Harris, one of the hardest skeptics on the planet who then started Ten Percent Happier, even he could get through the book and find it very helpful.
So in some ways, this exploration is also my own kind of reckoning. What it takes this N of 1 to connect to this teaching on time and suffering. If I now could sit beside my 19-year-old self and kind of hold her hand? Maybe she wouldn't let me hold her hand, actually, but be by her side as we looked at some of these passages. What would I say to her?
How would I help her find sense behind Eckhart's claims about psychological time and clock time and "life situation" and "life"?
How would I help her suffer less sooner?
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 continuing adventure. In no time, no problem. And in this rambling, extensive exploration, we found ourselves last time in a way more in the neuroscience or the human experience of time.
SPEAKER_01
And was offered was a recognition of how much our human life is embedded in time.
SPEAKER_00
Even beyond the sense of our thinking mind caught up in conscious plans or replaying what we should have said. Not even the past, the hypothetical past. Well it's it was a look at something beyond just the busyness of our mind.
SPEAKER_01
This embeddedness of I think that this will come round more and more to even identity and the self.
SPEAKER_00
And by the way, someone at the end uh suggested that some of what I was speaking to was uh evocative for him of Heidegger. And yeah, I dipped into it this week and it's just fascinating to feel like one is on an adventure of coming to know your own experience, and to bring with it uh a thoughtfulness and an experientialness. That's why we even do hour-long meditative contemplations here, and again, what I offer here is what I go on, and I don't hold myself up as a model for what to do, but maybe as a way of how we can engage in this. So it's just it's just it's just wonderful to to touch in on such a diversity of ways uh people have sought to make some kind of contact with this topic. And in this progression, it might be helpful to talk a little bit about subjective and objective just as part of this landscape and then part of our own toolkit of inquiry, because sometimes it's like, oh, we just left the hard sciences, the objective stuff, neuroscience in the middle. We're gonna head towards uh would be not even gonna place it, I'm still too fresh to it. But we can see this whole spectrum, and I would really you know some of what I'm imparting here, if I'm imparting anything, is what uh Wanchel Park has so deeply helped me with, which is not what to think, but ways of thinking. So objective, subjective. Of course, we can come up with all kinds of definitions for that ways of dividing it up, and something that I have found helpful is that it's actually just on a spectrum.
SPEAKER_01
Again, this is coming from Wanchill Park. It's it's on a spectrum, and it's on a spectrum of what's easier to agree with.
SPEAKER_00
So even our most objective facts, like even a physical law of nature, sometimes even joke, you know, action-reaction, the most established mundane physics.
SPEAKER_01
Uh yeah, it's more objective.
SPEAKER_00
But objective here doesn't mean that we get to have a privileged view straight into the objective what it is reality. It's that it's easier to observe and test and come to some agreement on the more that that is there, then can be more classified as objective, and can just see if that matches what tends to be classified as objective versus subjective.
SPEAKER_01
And so today we are going to more go into the second meaning of no time, no problem, which is there some way where if there's not this sense of time that for us as human beings, there's no problem in the sense of freedom from suffering. Freedom from the kind of mental extra affliction, dukkha, dissatisfaction, that can be quite enmeshed in the sense of the past, memories of what's happened to us and the anticipation of the future. And one of the in the modern day one of the spiritual teachers who has emphasized this aspect and is quite famous for it is Eckertole.
SPEAKER_00
And for those of you who are not as familiar with his story, in some ways it's it begins with his very personal experience of an night, it really for him was a matter of transition that happened in quite a short period of time where he went from real depths, some of the utmost depths of suffering, and then experienced a shift. And then that was something that many years later, as people were like, I'd like to have some of what you're having, it was something that he then needed to find a way to explain, to put into words, to share with others. And it now says on the cover over fifteen million copies sold. And I'm sure it's many, many more now.
SPEAKER_01
And it's so I can almost even just feel the uh impact of so many people finding relating to this book, to the message of this book, and their lives being impacted by it.
SPEAKER_00
Which and uh the former news anchorman Dan Harris, who then started Ten Percent Happier and wrote his book, highly recommend his book, 10% happier. Yeah. Even he, and he he kind of talks himself as one of the hardest skeptics on the planet, even he could get through the book and find it helpful. So in some ways, this exploration is also my own my own kind of reckoning of what it takes to connect to this N of one. And what are my uh safety zone, and Eckhartole would certainly have a field day with my egoic shield of rationality. But what I'm what I'm looking for in explanations. One is that I would not even like I would not claim to know what Heidegger is saying, however many times I read him or Dogin.
SPEAKER_01
You know, I'm not saying oh this is this is what I is saying because he's doing his best to put into words something that me pretty hard to convey in words.
SPEAKER_00
And then the other thing that might be going on is you know, just me almost reaching back a little time travel here, a little reaching back and being like, what would it be like? What would it take for me to like if if I now could sit beside my uh 19-year-old self and kind of hold hold her hand? Maybe she wouldn't let me hold her hand actually, but but you know, be by her side as we looked at some of these passages, uh what would I say to her?
SPEAKER_01
So is it the case that if there's no time, there's no problem. I'll start with this passage on page uh sixty one.
SPEAKER_00
All negativity is caused by an accumulation of psychological time, and denial of the present, unease, anxiety, tension, stress, worry, all forms of fear are caused by too much future and not enough presence. Guilt, regret, resentment, grievances, sadness, bitterness, and all forms of non-forgiveness are caused by too much past and not enough presence. Most people find it difficult to believe that a state of consciousness totally free of all negativity is possible. And yet this is the liberated state to which all spiritual teachings point. It is the promise of salvation, not an illusory future, but right here and now. You may find it hard to recognize that time is the cause of your suffering or your problems. You believe that they are caused by specific situations in your life. And seen from a conventional viewpoint, this is true. But until you have dealt with the basic problem-making dysfunction of the mind, its attachment to past and future, and denial of the now, problems are actually interchangeable. If all your problems or perceived causes of suffering or unhappiness were miraculously removed for you today, but you had not become more present, more conscious, you would soon find yourself with a similar set of problems or causes of suffering, like a shadow that follows you wherever you go.
SPEAKER_01
Ultimately, there is only one problem the time bound mind itself.
SPEAKER_00
At nineteen, as some of you know, I experienced intense chronic illness from age eighteen through my twenties.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, I would have had questions.
SPEAKER_00
So one of the things that Ebert Vole distinguishes is the difference between a life situation and your life. And pay attention to your life. What is the difference? Your life situation exists in time.
SPEAKER_01
Your life is now. Your life situation is mind stuff. Your life is real. Find the narrow gate that leads to life. It is called the now.
SPEAKER_00
Narrow your life down to this moment. Your life situation may be full of problems, most life situations are.
SPEAKER_01
Okay. So we have some things we can explore here.
SPEAKER_00
What experientially Eckhart Ole might be pointing towards with life situation with the word problems in life situations and life. And my aside from what he would probably call a lot of pain body reactivity to some of this, it's a question of well, if I narrow it down, is there this way that I'm more and more just lopping off any sense of anticipation?
SPEAKER_01
Lopping off any sense of memory? And well, of course, if I don't have any sense of anticipation or memory, I will not even have a story of a problem. I will not even have a story of a life situation. So it doesn't quite seem like a way that one could function. Let's see how he responds to that.
SPEAKER_00
No time, no problem. Yeah, but you're gonna still need to have some of this sense of time. This is on page 56. Letting go of psychological time. Learn to use time in the practical aspects of your life. We may call this clock time, but immediately return to present moment awareness when those practical matters have been dealt with. In this way, there will be no buildup of psychological time, which is identification with the past and continuous compulsion, compulsive projection into the future. Clock time is not just making an appointment or planning a trip. It includes learning from the past so that we don't repeat the same mistakes over and over, setting goals and working towards them, predicting the future by means of patterns and laws, physical and mathematical, and so on, learn from the past and taking appropriate action on the basis of our predictions. That's a lot there that's included in clock time. But even here within the sphere of practical living, where we cannot do without reference to past and future, the present moment remains the essential factor. Any lesson from the past becomes relevant and is applied now. Any planning as well as working towards achieving a particular goal is done now. The enlightened person's main focus of attention is always the now, but they are still peripherally aware of time. In other words, they continue to use clock time but are free of psychological time.
SPEAKER_01
And then he goes on to some further examples of making a mistake or setting a goal.
SPEAKER_00
So those were some of the probably even more tame uh spiritual passages from this book. And now we have life and life situation, the problems of life situation. We have clock time and psychological time, and there's something resonating, and there's something like even even now when I read this, uh I've read it several times over the years since I get it it wakes me up.
SPEAKER_01
There's there's something very direct and meaningful in the words in my experience.
SPEAKER_00
At the same time, I just am like I can even just feel my my younger self being like, what what are you you're making up all these terms? What are you what are you talking about? So here's where I would just take my younger self by the hand and be like, let me let me show you something just kind of basic. Actually, literally take her by the hand, and if you'd like for this, you can stand up and just give your arms a shake. And we're just gonna bend over and let our arms just completely hang down as much as possible. Let all the extra tension and folding go from them. Gravity is gently pulling them to the earth, supported from above, and then gradually coming up with your arms still just hanging by your side, as relaxed as possible, they still get to be on vacation, nothing they need to do, and this would be easier with a partner, and I think you'll get the gist of it here, and so pick one arm that can just stay on vacation, and then take your other arm gently underneath it, and while that arm stays fully relaxed, gently raise it up with the support of the supporting arm, maybe so that your hand is about shoulder height in front of you. And yeah, it's not easy, especially doing it for yourself, but see if there's a way where that arm might feel more cradled, fully supported, and really heavy. Well, it doesn't have to do anything at all, and then see what it would be like to very gradually, very slowly add in just enough doing so that your arm can stay there on its own and drop the other hand to your side so that in a way we've approached we've approached to more the sense of just doing what we need to do and less of the extra holding intention that's not needed for this action. We're relaxing what we don't need finding what it is that's actually needed by becoming more in touch with in the fuller practice of this, it's the way things are going on, the flow of nature, less fighting the flow of nature, more following the flow of nature.
SPEAKER_01
So with that as a framework, that there's a flow of things going on, flow of change that we're part of. And we're using past, present, future storylines as part of the necessary experience and a living of that. Say managing it, but then that sounds like managing it, controlling it, navigating it. And so in this view, then Toles clock time can be everything that is part of this changing altogether flow now, where even our memories are not separate from now, but unfolding now so we can learn from them, and our plans don't have to take us away and cover over our life now, as we're so preoccupied by making our life situation okay, better, more whole, but that we're actually able to recognize that all those plans, all that anticipation is itself unfolding now, and the clocks that we use and the times that we tell our ways of measuring this changing altogether, coordinating it practically where we get to use clocks, we get to use time instead of in a way time using us.
SPEAKER_00
So there's this way that life, our life, this flow of nature all together, and again, I'm not saying this is what Tole is saying, but this is what I would say to my younger self, like it can encompass and hold, it does encompass and hold all that you think of as your life situation, not extended and separate in time, but holding it all within the unfolding altogether of just this moment. That psychological time is when we take the sense of the life situation, what Master Parker calls the not yet future or the gone past, and project it out so that we feel like our life situation is actually smeared out in time and we are trapped in time, we are trapped in our life situation, identity. But the illusion of separation and time, and my younger self is like, yeah, but you know, now I'm understanding maybe I can make a a diagram and kind of chart out these differences and where the confusion comes in.
SPEAKER_01
But I'm still suffering. And not just my younger self would say that. We each get to be in a one year.
SPEAKER_00
And especially in this no time, no problem at the level of human experience.
SPEAKER_01
Each find our own way.
SPEAKER_00
But maybe there's a toolkit where we're not left with only evocative words that resonate with us, but also some sense of at least for some of us, how, and this was actually the most valuable thing for me, how even psychological time, even the illusion of separation, even whatever it is that's contributing to my own extra suffering, that in practice we don't have to be about trying to change or get rid of anything.
SPEAKER_01
Not even time. Not even perhaps psychological time.
SPEAKER_00
But that there's this option, and maybe it's slower going, certainly is not the work of one evening for me. That it's just connected to a simple way that the flow of nature is including what we know about time, clocks in physics, including what we can know about time, and our experience of memories and anticipation in neuroscience, and including the vague immediacy of being a human being embedded in a life and embedded in a life situation.
SPEAKER_01
Actually being a life with a story might be deeply seemingly rooted in our identity and is also as flowing and altogether as any other aspect of nature. Even before, before a sense of doing that, just noticing your own experience. Or some part of you. What has its yeah, but interesting thing can happen at the more human level of one person sharing their experience? And here you even had two or three in a way. You count my younger self. What do we go on? When we're more relating human to human. We take some fuller, deeper breaths. To hone our exploratory instrument and to inquire into this sense of what do we find in the now? Are there problems there or not?
SPEAKER_00
On the next couple of outbreaths, just letting the releasing sense of the outbreath carry you are more settled.
SPEAKER_01
Sense of connection with support beneath you.
SPEAKER_00
Over exerting or effort, you know, arm movements, just even as we sit, holding intention as if we have the proper self-where we could let go of what we don't need.
SPEAKER_01
Actually, just lay down our weight into the support beneath the way of feeling more held in the immediacy of just all together now, to we have maybe a bit of a story of first we lay down, and then the support is there. Lay down the support comes up. Letting that two-part story merge so that the laying down and the supporting up is instantaneous. One interaction, just one now. And your day and your year and your lifetime are in time.
SPEAKER_00
This sense of being in the midst of a meditation session, in the midst of a day, in the midst of a year, in the midst of a lifetime is not outside of this moment.
SPEAKER_01
What is flowing inside of it? The past, present, future storyline flowing all together within the now that includes hands and seat and body in the space of this room. You don't have to do anything, manipulate it. Whatever can have an effect, whatever can be affected. Certainly, our memories and plans do that for us, have an effect on us, and we can affect them. All part of all of this affecting and being affected all together now. So we've added in all that we could ever need, all that we could ever use, all that could ever actually make a difference in our lives, and just feeling the hands on the lap, the seat in the chair, or whatever you might be sitting on. Actually, they're already dropped. And nothing in a way shifts because no aspect of that could have an effect. Breathing in breathing out. Without our story of the breath, we have a worse breath or a better breath. This might be one way to glimpse a breathing situation analogous to Floyd's life situation. Then enter the gateway of just the now. Be called a narrow gateway. Be that we enter through a narrow gateway. The breath is, but actually is all this flow together. And from here might even also recognize the flow of the story of the breath, is also flowing with love or life itself, is also fully now the memory of the last breath, the anticipation of the next one, conscious or subconscious. Open open the focus. Your seat.
SPEAKER_00
And there can be more of a sense of anticipation. There's that next finger waiting to be counted.
SPEAKER_01
Breathe into going through another round at your own pace. And noticing perhaps how especially anticipation might be playing a role in hovering over the fullness of this finger, this breath. Every space in between. Focus only on what can ensure my survival into the future. Might not face all that as we make circles with our hands. At the same time, we might just the doing, taking away as if some of the fullness of our being getting caught in holy psychological times. Embracing cheek.
SPEAKER_00
Shoulder height, holding a large sphere, the hands skyward, and coming down for inner embrace, on the middle, down the center, repeating, outer embrace like you're holding a sphere, inner embrace, like you're coming down inside, fear.
SPEAKER_01
So, what are we letting go of? From this perspective, it's nothing impractical. It doesn't even have to necessarily be labeled as spiritual in any way. And continue to breathe and move in the embracing Qigong. Or any movement you'd like. One final exploration of a contrast between movement flow in time action self in time. Everything we could ever practically need to navigate our lives. And the full vibrancy of being just now. A now that can hold all of our uses of time and story and clocks. That's the way it already is. It makes it so wonderful to get to share this together. Make your comments a little bigger.
SPEAKER_00
David sends his emojis, Christopher. That just blew my mind about using repeated patterns and clock time to predict. Made it too big.
SPEAKER_01
It's covering all your words. Um I've made it too big. One second, let me get my way.
SPEAKER_00
I can read all your words. So that that just blew my mind about using repeated patterns and clock time to predict and forecast the future. That was very impactful and meaningful to me. Thank you for sharing that, Christopher. Why is so interesting? What is it that we actually need? Do we actually need a whole dimension of the future time that we could separate into? Uh Rachel says, Algo, how old are you, may I ask? Versus 19. I'm just trying to understand how many years have passed since you were 19. Let's even buy my own math. I said 25 years ago. And then I said 19. Um, I am, I think I'm 43. I think I'm 43. I think I've had my 43 birthday. Um Rachel is by the question for a kid. Yeah, I'm just trying to put a context. Yeah. We can all share your ages. Why we all share our ages since I share my age now? Um, Rachel, for me, can coincidentally it's been 19 years since I was 19. David. I'm still the same age as I always have been, and I'm still experiencing the moments of now.
SPEAKER_01
But I've I'm having trouble reading it well.
SPEAKER_00
But I've ridden through 63 years of clock time and often felt the clock was running slow, but it's feeling like the clock has been a lot faster in recent years. So finding the energy to experience the present moment has been more difficult and challenging than before. The clocks may run down and stop while our present will always be with us.
SPEAKER_01
It always has been, as it always has been.
SPEAKER_00
David, you are a poet, Rachel says agreed. Myriad, hello, I just got here. Great vibes. Welcome.
SPEAKER_01
Welcome, I see many of you from previous times. Humming through on these long explorations. The best, says David. Thanks for all the hearts. I'll send some hearts back.
SPEAKER_00
I know it can be you know what what do you formulate, what do you say in a comment? But I really welcome any comments, including anything about what you find helpful, also what you find not so helpful.
SPEAKER_01
Um never intend this to be here this is what's worked for me. It's gonna work for you. And I think that comes even out of some lived experience. Even touching back in on this book that I think gave me some of the impression like freedom from suffering could just be a matter of one big episode of a breakthrough.
SPEAKER_00
And certainly sometimes, even in the midst of some of my greatest pain, even physical pain, I have experienced some moments where you can find a lot of bliss, even in the midst of that, and also I think that for many years I exacerbated my own suffering from the from the sense of almost like someone kind of dancing around being like, Oh, I did it, you could do this too.
SPEAKER_01
It's a weird thing of like empowering and cutting through in a way, but for each of us, I find the respect that we're going to each find the missing pieces, and that if someone's approach doesn't work for you, the fault is not actually in you.
SPEAKER_00
Certainly experience a lot of self-blame in that category. Ravane, the length feels right, and the form from the philosophical part to the practical.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah. Thanks, Raven. Raven says, I have Crohn's and I am used to managing the pain. But would much rather find bliss in it.
SPEAKER_00
A pang with a pain and a pang. Um and I think that this is some of the difficult, like the the wonderful aspect, but also the difficult aspect of sharing personal, subjective experience on whatever you want to call this path, spiritual, practical, and just rational. Um, but especially in the journey on right, no problem, the journey of less suffering, it gets intensely personal, and it's so easy to make comparisons.
SPEAKER_01
And so, in a in a way, I I would tie this back to even the discussion of subjective objective.
SPEAKER_00
Your experience is always your experience, my experience is mine, always experiences his, you know, Park's experiences his, and when we can communicate in a way where it's not only like deeply evocative, but we can kind of come to some terms of this is what we mean by this, and and have some good evidence, some supporting evidence, what we talked about as more objective, it's easier to agree, and of course it's all spectrum, but just to be clear, I don't mean like psychological studies of this has done this and this and this is therefore, you know. Well, for acrylic, you know, 10 million people have for 15 million and probably many more have deeply resonated with that book, and it was not the book for me at that time. Yeah, so it's not just a statistical thing that I'm talking about, though that can be an aspect. But when we can see that, yes, this it's not mandated by physics as an interpretation, but this is a valid option for how we can view reality according to objective physics, and then try that on for size, clarify what is the illusion that's more at this root of this, even this difference here, perhaps. Again, I don't want to overinterpret, but one reading could be the difference between psychological time and clock time, is the illusion of separation from now. And then it becomes less about because I've had this experience and it's worked for me, or it's worked for all these other people, it should work for you. So follow this and you'll get this benefit, even though that's of course not the framing that whole I put on it, but it's a natural reading of it, especially in our society, what we're used to. And there can be more just the sense of this is this is the flow of nature, whether you perceive it or not, whether you feel it or not, whether you're suffering extra or not.
SPEAKER_01
This is the flow of nature, and so it gives more that ground that can lay into that's not me trying to get what you have, which is itself another embedding in yeah, extra suffering.
SPEAKER_00
David says people often say that pain is a matter of perspective, but as a trained artist, I can confirm that perspective is dependent on the viewer as much as the subject, so there's no right or wrong way to experience how our body feels. I prefer to be outside of myself as often as possible so I don't have to feel it from the inside. Maybe this can be uh exploration for another time, but as you all know, the the diversity of experience all kinds of levels are our life situations that include a biological brain and a biological body.
SPEAKER_01
I have real deep respect for how much meeting yourself right where you are is a challenge, and it's a challenge in the dynamics of also seeking help from others, and I think if there's something I'm really committed to, it's somehow being a at least a voice for that gap that many of us find ourselves in.
SPEAKER_00
Not a voice on the other side of the gap, not a saying this is how you can bridge the gap, but that there is a gap, and that together we can support each other in exploring and discovering what that gap is and what works for each of us in our uniqueness.
SPEAKER_01
So with that, thank you for all the support. Hearts back at you. And take care.
