Guided Meditation: Letting Go of the Present; Time (5 of 5) Freedom Beyond Time

Added: 2026-05-23

[00:00:00]Greetings, friends.

[00:00:02]It's good to be with you this Friday for the culmination of um our series, our week on exploring time.

[00:00:14]So, just to frame a bit, um we have explored this week, we have explored the idea of psychological time, um the impact of memory, um and planning on becoming uh bhava.

[00:00:33]We talked about mechanical and body time, the the difference in tuning into both.

[00:00:40]And we talked about mortality and preciousness of time.

[00:00:46]And today, we are going to talk about or explore how the Buddha didn't just say let go of the past and let go of the future, but also he pointed to letting go of the present, which often surprises practitioners, which can sound, yeah, really confusing or shocking.

[00:01:10]Isn't mindfulness all about being in the present moment? Isn't it all about the present moment?

[00:01:17]Um well, yes and no. So, let's explore together, friends.

[00:01:24]What does it what does it actually mean?

[00:01:27]So, without further ado, let's uh let's practice. Let's get into our bodies and uh arriving arriving in this moment in time.

[00:01:51]Turning your gaze inward.

[00:01:56]Realizing that time is short and it's always passing.

[00:02:03]The momentary moments of being here, here, here.

[00:02:18]And allowing ourselves to embody to rest in this passing moment.

[00:02:52]Feeling this body breathing.

[00:03:02]Aware of the sensations unfolding in this moment.

[00:03:21]These sensations are ripening in their own moment, in their own time.

[00:03:35]Being known.

[00:04:36]>> Letting the sensations of the breath in the body be known.

[00:04:49]In time, right here, right now.

[00:07:33]>> Noticing the unfolding of the present moment.

[00:07:41]And how knowing of sensations, sounds, thoughts, all that we can possibly know in our awareness is unfolding right now here in this present moment right here.

[00:08:03]being known.

[00:08:06]Bringing more awareness to the now-ness.

[00:08:12]Using a word as a verb, but the now-ness of phenomena.

[00:08:32]Phenomena unfolding within this now-ness.

[00:10:12]>> Whatever mind states, thoughts, emotions, whatever unfolds, it's right here.

[00:10:28]And the doorway, the doorway through this awareness is the present moment.

[00:10:38]No other doorway.

[00:13:29]>> Mhm.

[00:14:18]>> And now see what it's like.

[00:14:23]If you would grasp to the present moment.

[00:14:28]Just to see the impact in the body, the heart and mind. To recognize it in the moments that we actually do that in life.

[00:14:38]What if in addition to knowing, simply being aware of what's arising and passing here?

[00:14:47]Now, there's also this tightness.

[00:14:52]This wanting of this present moment like Velcro.

[00:14:58]Clinging to it.

[00:15:00]The heart getting tight.

[00:15:06]The stomach getting tense perhaps around the present moment.

[00:15:11]This moment. Oh, this moment. Grasping.

[00:15:16]And now, soften. Let go.

[00:15:22]Let go of the present moment. It's unfolding anyway. It's arising and passing. Just to feel it in your body.

[00:15:31]What it's like to let go of the present.

[00:15:34]Allow the flowing.

[00:15:36]Cuz the time is flowing anyway and yet it's the psychological non-clinging, non-clinging to the present.

[00:15:58]Psychological non-clinging, non-grasping to this moment right here.

[00:16:07]Spaciousness with it, spaciousness around it.

[00:16:27]Notice what that feels like.

[00:16:45]Present in this moment.

[00:16:52]Fully present. Feeling, sensing, knowing. No time travel.

[00:17:00]And yet not grasping.

[00:17:05]To this moment wanting it to last, wanting it to be a particular way.

[00:17:27]>> Not resisting the present moment, not pushing it away.

[00:17:46]Being in peace.

[00:17:48]Being at peace with the coming and going.

[00:17:54]And present with this instance of time.

[00:18:15]Perhaps smiling at this moment of time, a sense of spaciousness, non-grasping.

[00:22:31]>> This precious moment is valuable. This moment is precious.

[00:22:43]Right here, it's precious. And it is fleeting.

[00:22:47]It is fleeting.

[00:22:54]Can the heart learn to open up?

[00:23:00]Spaciousness with care.

[00:23:03]With love.

[00:23:05]Right here, right now without grasping.

[00:23:12]How can there be ease, peace, care, love, spaciousness?

[00:23:21]Spreading, expanding in this precious moment.

[00:23:29]Aware.

[00:23:35]Kind.

[00:23:37]Without tightening, without grasping around it.

[00:23:46]Is either grief of its passing or pushing away, not wanting it to be this way.

[00:24:00]This moment precious and fleeting.

[00:24:03]This moment.

[00:24:44]Has never been like this and will never be this.

[00:24:53]Can the heart know this moment with spaciousness.

[00:28:49]>> Mhm.

[00:30:14]>> And as we bring this sitting period to close, as I announce this, see if the heart clings to this moment. Uh-oh, I want to sit more.

[00:30:27]Grasping this moment, perhaps, or or oh, thank goodness, it's the end, pushing it away. What is the relationship of the heart to the unfolding of this present moment.

[00:30:44]And letting go, letting be.

[00:30:51]May our practice be a cause and condition for awakening in time of all beings, including ourselves. May all beings be well. May all beings be free.

[00:31:13]>> [bell] [bell] >> Thanks for your practice, everyone.

[00:32:35]So, greetings, everyone.

[00:32:38]I see is day five, the culmination of the week that we've been exploring and um yeah, exploring time. So, just a brief overview of the arc that we've had.

[00:32:55]Um we started on Monday with exploring psychological time.

[00:33:00]Uh it's always the present and yet we travel to the future time travel future past and all the relationships that we have. We expect the future. We are afraid of the future. We want it to happen. We plan for it. We obsess over it. Uh similarly about the past, we regret it. We rehearse it. We go over arguments, etc. So, the psychological time and the experience of time.

[00:33:30]Second day we talked about bhava, becoming, becoming time and becoming.

[00:33:36]How really the way that we relate to time, future, present and past is is really way of our becoming a person who takes birth as a fearful person or we take birth as a anxious person or we take birth as someone who has a reverie, you know, has reverie. So, it's through time, through our relationship to time, we become, we take birth.

[00:34:04]And um then we explored mechanical mechanical versus embodied time.

[00:34:11]And not to um put one, you know, to to to elevate one versus the other, but to notice where we usually um where we lean. Do we lean into mechanical time? Exactly, it's time it's time it's time for really ignoring embodied time, body time?

[00:34:32]Or are we usually leaning into body time? Oh, when I feel like it, I'll do this when I feel like it.

[00:34:40]So, noticing how it's it's like the wise effort, it's wise engagement um teaching from the Buddha. What is our tendency to become I mean, that's that's about effort and yet this is about knowing our um tendencies and and tuning a bow. If we're too much into uh driven by mechanical time, maybe leaning a little more into body time and vice versa. So, tuning a bow, not that either of them is right or wrong, but but um what's what's what's [snorts] wise?

[00:35:14]What's appropriate?

[00:35:18]And yesterday we Was it yesterday already we uh explored mortality um maranasati, mindfulness of death. Sutta.

[00:35:31]What if my life was if I if I was only alive for the length of this in-breath or the length of this out-breath? This is all the time I have. How do I want to attend to the Buddhist teachings? How do I want the state of my heart and mind to be?

[00:35:49]Bringing wisdom, bringing ethics, bringing all of the important really the important teachings into time, preciousness of time. And also we explored samvega, spiritual urgency, practicing as if your hair is on fire, knowing that time is short, that this is it.

[00:36:12]And and uh the the invitation yesterday was to drop in. The days and nights are relentlessly passing. How well am I spending my time?

[00:36:24]How well am I spending my time. So, So, that brings us to the culmination of the week and I've waited actually I wanted to do that today as the last the last day because um the idea of our relationship with the present moment um we often think as meditators we we put the present moment on a pedestal.

[00:36:54]It's all about the present moment. Be in the present. Be in the present. And I wanted to to bring in the teaching where the Buddha says um in the Dhammapada verse 348 Let go of the past. Let go of the future.

[00:37:14]Let go of the present.

[00:37:18]Did you hear that? Let go of the present and cross over to the farther shore of existence. With mind wholly liberated, you shall come no more to birth and death.

[00:37:31]So, when I heard this years ago in the teaching uh by Joseph Goldstein and he offered and and he has frequently refers reference this powerful verse. My mind was also blown to Wait, what? Let go of the present? That's I thought mindfulness and practice was all about the present.

[00:37:50]No, it isn't. Let go of the past. Let's go of the future. Let go of the present, too. So, the way to feel into this teaching as I was inviting you during the guided meditation is the present is the doorway. Is a very important precious doorway. This is the doorway that we need to walk into and walk through into awakening, into Nirvana, into more freedom. It only happens here. It doesn't happen with the thoughts, ruminations of the past, it doesn't happen future, it happens when we're really fully present.

[00:38:28]Um and being aware of what is happening arising in the present moment that insights arise. And if you have had experience of insight, uh you know it happens right here right now. So the present is the doorway, it's a very very important doorway.

[00:38:48]And yet when we travel to the other shore and other shore is nibana is is a shorthand for liberation. We don't we don't and and and the simile is usually uh it's a river, we cross the river uh by with a raft. Uh the raft are the teachings.

[00:39:11]And this shore is where we are and the other shore is is liberation. And when we take the raft of the teachings to the other shore we're going to abandon the raft too. And similarly the present moment, we're not going to take this doorway and put it, you know, and and take it with us and on the other shore take it with us. We're going to abandon it all. It's it's letting go, it's not clinging to anything. So it's really the relationship we have with the present moment. It's important and yet not put it on a pedestal, not cling to it, not um not want it to last, not pushing it away and really bringing this wise exploration to our relationship um to to the present moment. How are we relating to it? Are we relating to it with wisdom?

[00:40:05]Or or again putting it on a pedestal. Uh it's it's it's a tool.

[00:40:11]So I also want to read out um the the related uh uh Sutta which is Bhaddekaratta Bhaddekaratta Sutta, Majjhima Nikaya 131.

[00:40:30]It really sums up the entire um week, perhaps.

[00:40:36]In some ways, let not a person revive the past or on the future build their hopes.

[00:40:48]For the past has been left behind.

[00:40:53]And the future has not been reached.

[00:40:58]Instead, with insight, let them see each presently arisen state.

[00:41:08]Let them know that Let them know that and be sure of it, invincibly, unshakably.

[00:41:19]Today, the effort must be made.

[00:41:23]Tomorrow, death may come.

[00:41:27]Who knows?

[00:41:29]No bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart. I love this line. No bargain No bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart.

[00:41:46]But the one who dwells thus ardently, relentlessly, by day and night, it is they, the peaceful sage has said, who has had a single excellent night.

[00:42:06]Majjhima Nikaya 131.

[00:42:12]I love this.

[00:42:14]>> [snorts] >> Sutta, this part of the sutta specially.

[00:42:17]No bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart. We are intertwined, us and death, right here, right now. It's not like death is at some point far into the future. We live and die every moment with every breath.

[00:42:35]And it's not uh just poetry. It's actually bi- biology. Thousands of cells are dying in every moment. They're being Some others are being born, but others are dying. So, no bargain with mortality can keep us and death apart. But, we are intertwined. We are intertwined, birth and death.

[00:43:01]So, today the effort must be made.

[00:43:04]Tomorrow death may come. Who knows?

[00:43:09]So, friends, thank you so much for your practice, your wholeheartedness, your ardency, um your showing up. You're showing up.

[00:43:23]Um it's really an honor and and a delight. Um yeah, really a privilege to to be with you and to to to lead you, to feel you. I may see that the names, I see your comments, I see uh it's it's really heart-warming. I see so many of you are here. Just it's I feel you around the world. So, really it's a privilege and honor to to um yeah, that you trust me to to share these teachings with you. Thank you all.

[00:43:55]Um wishing you well, wishing you um oh, so many good things. Wishing you well, wishing you ease, wishing you presents, wishing you a presence in the present moment and also letting go of the presents just as the Buddha says. Okay.

[00:44:16]Be well. Take good care. Till next time.

[00:44:19]Or come to happy hour if you want to hang out and practice meta and loving kindness and and gratitude and joy, vicarious joy every day 6:00 to 7:00 p.m.

[00:44:32]on Zoom. It's on the IMC calendar.

[00:44:37]So, all right. Take good care everyone.

[00:44:44]>> [snorts]