In this eighteenth installment of the ongoing live series with Wendy Nash inquiring into meditation practice on and off the cushion we explore how our views, perceptions and experiences of time influences, colors and flavors mediation practice and our daily lives.
Potential resources:
. . . look for how a sense of time is formed in your experience. What does your mind do when you think a thought of past or future? How do those feel different? What is the difference in the qualities of sensations, in the way the head and eyes hold themselves, in where thoughts occur, in how they feel? Formally experiment with how a sense of time is created here and now, consciously, clearly, in this space, in this immediacy. This begins to create some of the frameworks of insight that will be very useful later. Read that sentence again and see how you immediately perceive the concept of “later”!
https://www.mctb.org/mctb2/table-of-contents/part-v-awakening/37-models-of-the-stages-of-awakening/a-revised-four-path-model/
- The Order of Time [book]
- The Buddhist Perspective on Time and Space By Ven Master Hsing Yun [free book]
- Knowledge of Time & Space: An Inquiry into Knowledge, Self & Reality (Time, Space and Knowledge) by Tarthang Tulku [book]
- https://lawoftime.org
(Ways to) join these Q & A’s when they happen live:
- via downloading the free Wisdom app in your app store or via: https://wisdom.audio where I’m @integratingpresence or https://joinwisdom.audio/integratingpresence
- watch on my YouTube channel
*There’s naturally an ongoing open call for meditation (related) questions for the (roughly) monthly “Meditation Q & A” either by the various social media means listed; integratingpresence[at]protonmail.com or just showing to type/ask live.*
Background
Regular, current and past visitors to Integrating Presence may recall the monthly series “Ask Us Anything” I did with Denny K Miu from August 2020 until January 2022 — partially including and continuing on with Lydia Grace as co-host for awhile until March 2022.
For a few months thereafter I did various Insight Timer live events exploring potential new directions and/or a continuation of the Ask Us Anything format while weaving in other related teachings to these events.
Then, after chats with meditation coach Wendy Nash, it became clear to start a new collaboration similar to “Ask Us Anything” simply and clearly called “Meditation Q & A” especially due to the original intent of the Ask Us Anything’s being “discussions about meditation and related topics.”
Past chats with Wendy:
Audio: How Time Meditates | February 23, 2024 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #18
Or listen via Insight Timer (app or website)
The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
Josh again with another episode back here with Wendy for our Q&A meditation Q&A this is number 18 it
says up there that I put earlier and we’re gonna call this one H well Wendy what’s going
on well I don’t know but I’m in Queensland I am calling from Gabby Gabby
country oh it’s I’ve just put that YouTube has come up so anyway had to suddenly silence said because it comes
up and then I’m like quick mute mute mute um
so yeah so basically it’s hot here today
and I have as I was saying just before we came on air I’ve been a bit flat I have this advocacy movement and I’ve had
this big thing happening and I’ve suddenly gone oh I’m exhausted and I’ve been trying to push for something and
it’s not going anywhere in terms of expecting particular outcomes and it’s
one thing to say I don’t want to have an outcome and then it’s another thing to actually go oh gee I’ve been expecting a
lot of outcomes and I realized I can’t do it so I’ve just decided to change my
attack I’ve got my little podcast that I do for my transport stuff and that just just hanging out
with people who I like who like me who want to be doing that that’s such a great thing it’s so helpful because I
think sometimes in in certainly in the spiritual world you can think no no I’m I’m above it and I’m more than human and
then you go no no no I’m truly human definitely it’s very hard to deal with
no no no no no all the time and if you have a parent like that like certainly I
have that and yeah that’s how work and it’s good sometimes to go you know what
it’s not always good to stay in that space you got to take care of your body and mind so that’s short answer that’s how I
am yeah that’s that’s uh I mean this is life right and and sometimes it gets
really freaking intense uh and we do need to pull back and do more self-care
and stuff and other times it’s not like that I mean it’s an oversimplification but yeah we do what we can right um and
meditation helps with that obviously uh can uh for me anyway then now we’re
going to call this one how time meditates so um I had a description here
basically we can explore how our views perception and experience of time
influence colors and flavors our meditation practice in our everyday lives so Wendy how does doeses time uh
tie into this would you say any perceptions of time you know here in Denmark I think one of the words for
time is a clocking I don’t know if I’m pronouncing that would be the watch the clock you know right so this whole
notion of time in and of itself is kind of like um a construct in the mind a a g
a social agreement that we all agree upon that this this thing says a certain time and it’s all synced up by this
nuclear agency somewhere right they have this nuclear clock and they set the exact time and all of our clocks are
sync to it and can who are these people can I write them a letter don’t they know nobody likes daylight savings time
and they don’t listen to us so I mean I’m being I’m joking a little half Ser but I’m half serious here too you know I
don’t know so it’s just this weird notion and then what is the speed of time I’m throwing a lot out here I had I
I put this to a guy who was into math and he came up with the answer it was one but I don’t but I don’t know like
how do you measure time but to me at the end of the day it’s just agreed upon
perception uh I’ll go into my own experiences and stuff like that but I want to throw this back to Wendy since I
put a lot out there right away so there’s so thanks for just kind of hearing me out while I was slightly
going oh my goodness I’m like really bit burnt out um so time it’s an interesting
one I actually listened to a a a podcast this week and it
was it was about how do you translate time so you’ve talked about clocker and
then you have tid so there’s another word for time as well it’s a different thing um so one is how much is the hour
if you like and then what’s your sense of time what is your duration time I guess I
think probably that’s what it would be in Danish I think about it that’s what it is in
Swedish um so but in some languages they
don’t have any time words they don’t have the concept
of it and I don’t know how that works so in in one of the Aboriginal languages
here they actually have four times they have past present and future but then they have this eternal time like well we
humans will always be walking so that there is a a particular
conjugation that you use for those types of activities of the
constancy of doing the same thing over um
Millennia so I think that’s quite an interesting
quite an interesting idea so there’s that and yeah I mean it depends on who you ask as to what time means and it
depends when and where and yeah you can have so you mathematically it’s sort of
time is measured according to distance but that’s a particular way of looking
at time it’s not I don’t know that I necessarily my perception you know when
you’re my life flash before my eyes so how I’ve not had that experience but if
you had had that experience what would be the sense of time because are you talking about the
life or are you talking about that so anyway that’s off topic but something
something in there well there there’s really so much to this you know um that
the FL flashing before one’s eyes people call that a Life review that’s it’s a really common thing when people they
have near-death experiences and things like that so it seems like one’s um having memories of their entire life
compress down into a short amount of time so this is uh the relative
perception of time right we all know Einstein’s thing but uh I I don’t know
because there’s this is something we all experience too right sometimes time seems to go by very quickly you know
this obvious notion sometimes it drags on and on for forever hopefully when you’re watching our show here it will
you know go quickly but totally totally totally it’s like oh wow we it’s a
gripping episode definitely definitely and there’s there’s all I was
this was contemplating on this earlier and there’s there’s all kinds of other different perceptions of time now where
I think it it affects our practice or our spiritual practices is this notion
of oh there’s so many of these fomo fear of missing out right I don’t have enough time I I want all these thing I I got to
make sure that I don’t miss out because I only have so much time here on Earth and I don’t want to miss exactly but
what I found is we’re going to have the experiences we’re meant to have anyway it seems like I mean that’s another
perception another one is oh gez like I just mentioned this is never going to
end like it it longer stretches in our lives right like I’ve been trying this
how do I get out of this you know it’s been this particular challenge or issue has been going on for forever I I am I
then it could lead to all these things oh I’m I’m dumb I’m stupid why haven’t I figured this out yet you know this is
nothing for so many other people then we start the comparison conceit and things like this and that’s not helpful either
and we know nothing lasts forever right and we can every time if there is a
repeating we can get a broader perspective on and I talk about the spiral staircase climbing that up and so
we can see a larger area of this um some things go by really quick right um hey I
don’t have enough time I really cherish this person and I’m not going to have enough time so I’m constantly thinking
oh I want more time I want more time and then I’m not there present fully to to uh to Value the time that we do have
together and then there’s certain people that we don’t like it’s just oh God not this person again I’m ready here like 10
15 minutes how do I get out of this you know why is this always happening you know uh waiting uh some
people have a really hard time waiting for things they get impatience this is with patience and yeah so these are a few
practical ones that we deal with uh every day or you know commonly these perceptions we
have yeah so as you were saying that I was thinking I’m one of those people who’s like come on come on come on come on come on I haven’t got time I haven’t
got time and and there’s this idea of time being commodified but here we are
we’re talking about meditation and time and I have I had this experience where
where I saw time I don’t know apparently this is
what they’re starting to look at in physics this idea of
time uh is you what I saw was that you have a moment and then you have kind of
air and then you have another moment and then you have air and then you have
another moment and in each of those moments it was sort of digital rather than analog I would say and sort of in
each moment that you’re doing something you’re you you get a new set of options
but in each time you do something you have a new set of options so you I might be saying something now and then I’ve
got well what are my options I can unplug the microphone I can scream at
you I can you know I don’t know the bomb might land whatever
and say the bum lands and then it’s like okay well what are my options you know if it if I’m
alive if I’m dead whatever so all these things are sort of separate
incidents and we can be conscious about how we use our time and conscious about
the decisions about how we use time or we can be passive recipients I was this
I was in a group one of these coaching groups and somebody said she has bipolar
and somebody said the coach said so are you in sort of in charge of what happens
or are you being carried by it and you know are you the agent of
what happens or are you being carried by the energy of this Mania and I think
often we think that we are carried by the energy of what of
this time thing it has to be but we’re not necessarily realizing that we have
agents we have agency in that space and I think when you’re in meditation you can start
to slow down slow down what happens in the mind
to to be less of a passive r and more of an
atic decision so I think that I don’t know if that that is a useful way of
talking about it this is a really good point I mean I’ve dipped my toes into
the Abid dama Waters you heard of the that third basket of the the cannon and I think um Mahayana has a Abid Dharma
but this is a really vast and complex higher um psychological version of the
dhama that was uh from what I understand it was added later on um and but it’s
fascinating to me so they talk about these mind moments and there are a
ridiculous amount of Mind moments like in every second I think that there was some kind of debate where if if there’s
um something like do they actually have a um a measurable like you could put
like 12 125,000 of a second on there or something you know so I I’m I’m making
that up or is it just like this instant and supposedly these happen so quickly
that as meditation practice deepens for some practitioners they can discern more
and more of these mind moments and then all the different things that can possibly go with them now and Wendy
pointed out these these um these seeming Choice points that happen or could potentially happen and the area you call
I think some people call Banga this this state of resting Consciousness uh as
part of a mind anyway I don’t know enough about it I know some terminology but until I can see it and know it in my
own practice then it’s just all kind of conjecture for me or um information but
it does seem that way in my experience too that you know Moment by moment and that’s a whole another thing too A
Moment by the time we almost discern what a moment is or when that
moment is it’s already gone you know and so because the
discernment yeah so the discernment is the separation from what is here and I think we often get caught in the
discernment uh view rather than the hear
here view sorry to cut you off no no that’s it is and so that’s kind of a
mind F there in a little bit too you know because then that could leave maybe
to the perception that we’re always behind if we can’t be in each IND idual moment we’re always reflecting on
something that just happened I wonder anyway that’s uh speculation but going back to my my point here that um so the
we have these seeming Choice points from each moment and you know as our perception expands I know early on in my
practice or before practice things seems more like there wasn’t a lot of choices
right but I think as perception expands that we can see all these different opportunities like
for instance just go out and walk on a field with grass it’s crazy to think but you could
actually go up to almost any individual blade of grass I don’t know you know and pick that out I mean that’s a lot of
choices I mean a little lot of mundane silly choices and you can take up a blade of grass and you can turn it in
all these varying degrees and angles and tear it apart in little bitty shreds so
the I mean it’s this is one of it’s called one of the imponderables in Buddhism to um the Comm so um are trying
to understand all the ins and outs of comma is can be maddening because of all
the different now just think when we come into interaction with someone else too if we have all these choices and I I
chose one thing but not another oh what would have happened if I would have chose this and this other person would
have chose this or did this and then what what led them up to this and it’s just there’s just almost an incalculable
amount of possibilities that could potentially play play out and then the probabilities of How likely one thing so
it’s it will quickly spiral into something that’s way not manageable and
not worth or sanity to go into to all the full amount of degrees that it can
and now when we put a clock on this and time this stuff you know it is kind of
like a measuring system now the thing Wendy said too was this sense of agency
and it and I will say a sense of agency because this is a whole another thing
that I think science is even talking about now and a lot of people say well there is no free will and I mean free
will I’m want to put that aside because that’s a little bit murky of a concept I like to just use Choice okay so we all
seemingly have choices but how much are based on our conditioned habit patterns
where we’re on autopilot and we just choose based on our habits and all the different things that condition so I
think it’s important too when we look at choice to how much are things uh the causes and conditions around these so I
I’m I’m not on one side of the fence or or another sometimes it seems like some people have a lot of agency and some
people don’t seemingly have none but you know I I don’t know where that lies now
there’s um there’s something called like uh will and valtion too right and then
Our intention also is another thing in this if we pay attention pay attention
to Our intention in meditation it’s a really powerful thing I mean that’s a whole another topic for
almost an entire show but and then this the last thing the active versus passive
this is really important I think for the male in particular that when we sit then
we realize oh hey there’s there’s this option of um things allowing things to
happen to me instead of me being the active agent doing you know U that we can open and receive
and notice what’s already happening whether we’re involved or not or seemingly involved or not yeah a lot of
good points here Wendy so I’ve just seen that Miss Reed is with us today remind
time reminds me of Cycles they come and going so they they come and go so being
present is a gift uh I’ve just it’s got a heart behind it so I I can’t actually let me
see if I can bring that up a little bit um so I haven’t I haven’t finished
integrate it integrate and Implement presence in life so thank you very much
M Reed it’s nice to have you back online that’s very exciting and that’s a whole
another notion we haven’t mentioned yet is Cycles because we look at I mean that’s how time was originally measured
to begin with the possessional cycles of the stars and the Moon and the Sun and it’s all relative based on our I mean if
we’re viewing it from Earth it’s different from if we were say on a different planet somewhere else right
how they um measure time and the rotational bodies and all this stuff Seasons seasonal change
too yeah yeah so it depends so it it turns
out that one of the problems that we have I think in Western Society is
humans are very poor at be at being able to discern change in time we’ve got a
very narrow window where we can go okay I see that change has happened and I
think change is one of those things that you can observe when you sit still for a long
time so if you’re rushing around it’s very hard to notice change in fact
because your in a state of constant change you don’t have enough time to look at the impact what else is changing
at the same time as you are so I think there’s yeah
so we’re we’re kind of really stupid I think this is where I’m kind of getting
to because we think we’re really clever but I think we’ve basically got a huge
case of the Dunning Krueger effect we don’t know how stupid we are so we think we’re really clever
that’s that’s and and I think that’s what I learn in meditation about
everything I thought I had to be in control and then I can yield this is much better and somebody my one of my
lecturers at University she said well it’s not that you have choices it’s that you have options it’s not the same thing
so if you’re in the supermarket you have different options you don’t really have many choices because the supermarket is
providing you with a a selection so I don’t quite know the
difference between a choice and an option but I I I quite like that as a as
a basic guide to understand yeah how how
to we are co- co-creators of of what
happens in our world I don’t believe we’re totally passive but I think we often very do a lot of unconscious most
of our time is making a lot of UNC conscious decisions about what we do in
with our lives in time and we don’t realize that we we are
always making this decision to go I’m opting out from making a decision you know but the decision to not make a
decision is still a decision and so how we use time is one of those ones I don’t want
to know that tell it to the hand essentially I think we spend a lot of our time
not not listening not saying not
noticing not and then and then we just wonder why we don’t feel we are
connected to where we are we don’t feel present we don’t feel sort of this
abundant sensory world because we’re so busy moving to the next thing and one of
the things that I thought was very interesting in this talk is they talked about the idea of time this came in into
the English language in a really big way I think uh during the Victorian
era when you know we sort of so how things yeah getting there getting where
well kind of knowwhere actually and so the sense of time has praded our
language that progress and time are the same thing and and even in thoughts in
when we’re meditating you know we’re telling a story a beginning a middle and
an end and it goes very quickly but and then you get on to the next story and the next story but but there is a a
linearity to the storytelling and that’s that’s how our minds as westerners we’re
trained we that’s our cultural heritage yeah that’s
enough yeah the uh wow you brought up all kinds of cool stuff here this notion of linearity and in how we uh View and
perceive time yeah it is really a dumb down notion too and this whole thing of
not being present and being busy this speaks to a lot of programs that people are under by that I mean like you know
um the standard you know uh partner house kids work eat sleep repeat program
that I mean that’s the standard and if you have any deviation from that well then you don’t you’re not really what
the world you know I don’t know um the there’s all kinds of political programs
and mainly and then we the other thing we live like in a story of reality not
in reality itself because most people do live in a story about reality instead of directly experiencing it most of the
times and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this and I don’t think we can on the ultimate level I don’t think we
can get out of all these at least right away and there but the thing is which programs are more healthy or are better
for us and others in the in especially in the long term um but time you know it
talk about time being uh nonlinear or like a spiral mechanism or you know
cyclical time um and then you know this notion of the dhama it’s supposed to be
timeless you know what does that mean you know that’s that’s a whole another talk that uh
that when I was at the monastery um lumor gave a whole talk
about timelessness and then we go into this notion of change and not being able to
see change usually and this is a big one too but when we do meditate for any um
significant duration I think or you know um over time with the daily practice it
seems quite easy to notice it more and more easy and I think a lot of this has to do with subtleness a lot of us are
operating on the external in our everyday World on more of a gross level but as awareness expands or what’s in
the way of blocking it decreases then uh our awareness uh opens
up um perception expands and then we start noticing more and more things and
then on more and more subtle level we can notice just in our breath how no two
breaths are exactly the same right if we pay really close attention on finer and
subtler levels it’s changing all the time now when we go back into um I think
a lot of this has to do with mystery too you know one of the reasons that we’re not tuned into all this we think we know
all this other things we’re not tuning into these mysteries of Life they’re all around us right there’s so many of them
that science can’t explain that we can’t explain and that we just um we write off
because oh I don’t want to spend well there’s a lot of reasons people write it off but there’s a lot of stuff we don’t
know and that’s so bizarre and so mysterious um but then again the other
extreme is uh we can waste a lot of time you know on that when we need do practical things too and then the last
thing I’ll touch on here with this this thread is this notion of Self in our
choices or options I like that notion of yeah they are just options and we can see more options and sometimes it seems
like we can choose something and other times times we don’t seem to have uh that choice or even if we do have it as
a choice we could know that oh I don’t want to do that because last time I did something like that it doesn’t have this
particular outcome so it’s it’s better off me not choosing that even if I could choose that but this notion of well what
is choosing you know um and would I have made the same choices under a different
influence uh or when I was younger or when I’m older or when when I’m with this group of people how would my
choices then or giving this these circumstances uh right or or if I had
more money or less money so all these different conditions and then who actually is choosing that is it is it a
memory or a pattern or a habit um choosing it you know is it my my likes
and dislikes is it my rationality you know um is it is it I think I’m making a
smart decision no I think I’m making a heart-based decision you know or oh this is going to be a Consciousness expanding
thing because of my Consciousness is so expanded or oh I’m little me I’m so dumb
you know I I I need this because I’m so dumb and stupid uh you know or uh I I
don’t give it I don’t care I’m just going to do this anyway throw all repercussions to the wind or overly
cautious I don’t want to do anything because you know the consequences seem to be so great all the time everything
blows up in my face so I should just sit here and do nothing so anyway so on and on and on right uh but what’s actually
making those choices or has those options and that’s a whole another notion exploring self uh that’s that’s
big in the Buddhist practic as well yeah I mean our episode today is on
time so what’s the difference so look for how the sense of time is formed in
your experience this is a text you put up here on the on today’s page what does
your mind do when you think of a thought of past or future how do those feel
different what is the difference in the qualities of Sensations in the way the
head and eyes hold themselves in where thoughts occur and in how they feel
formly experiment with how a sense of time is created Here and Now consciously
clearly in this space in this immediacy this begins to create some of the
Frameworks of insight that will be very useful later read that sentence again
and see how you IM immediately perceive the concept of later so read that
sentence again so I’m not sure which one that is but I’ll take one this begins to
create some of the Frameworks of insight that will be very useful later so then
what do you understand by later so it’s it is really like you I
think you can get really caught up in being arrogant about not you but anybody
that I’ve got this and I think that’s that’s the the kind of key
problem really is that we we I think this is something about I
don’t know white people or something this real idea that I know what the answer is I know I know what they should
do but really like you know no I don’t
even know what I I think is the right thing for me why would I think it I know what the right thing is for somebody
else and and so this idea of time I know how you should spend your time I know
what you should do in this moment this this is a really good point
Wendy and I will just say that um yes absolutely that’s that’s a really good
wakeup call especially for me and this notion my fiance and I joke about all the time is this I think it’s an Amer
American saying too is oh I got this i got this bro I got this it’s so it’s so this this kind of
false empowerment that but you know what the what it does speak to too though we
have um there are people that are complet feel helpless all the time and so that’s actually helpful for them you
know what I mean I can’t do this I’m so helpless I’m nobody little me nothing
insignificant what what difference do I say what difference does that make you know then I think this little notion of
all these Bros I got this dude I got this bro you know I think that’s could actually be helpful for some people
where we can obviously see where it’s a detriment for every you know oh you know where we can M like me finding myself
mansplaining things and but this notion of how do we really know what what’s
best for someone and yes the one thing I will say though what this points at in
which I when I catch myself doing that uh unfortunately more than I’d like to
admit that it’s it underneath that though the heart it’s there to be helpful right and this is where the
masculine steps on its own feet all the time that they’re trying to fix everything all the time right but it
does come from a lot of times come from a masculine place of wanting to be helpful and caring but not really
knowing how and not a hammer isn’t going to be the best tool for everything so
one of the best ways for me to be helpful a lot of times and I have to learn this because I’m more practical right is just be quiet be present and
listen and that is so helpful for so many people and I keep forgetting that again and again and again and it comes
back and bites me in the butt a lot so this and then going to the um
Wendy I I feel you want to say something there and then we can go back to this what you read and we can look at this in
a meditative context and I think you’re you got have some kind of bug there for those yeah I’ve got a mosquito or
something and it’s just kind of going here and it goes in my not you know like it’s like right here and so I’m a little
bit distracted so I am very s this the whole time yeah well if it’s like you
don’t know you know it’s like in AAL and I’m in Queensland so in Queensland it’s like I’ve never known so many bugs I
have so never had so many bites on me it’s amazing um no I was thinking I was
thinking there about yeah about the idea of the what I
was thinking is so I have this transport advocacy movement and we have this amazing app on our phones and you can
take a photograph of a footpath that’s broken or graffiti or a burnt out car or
an abandon shopping trolley you can click on it do a photo it tells where it
is and and then it goes through to the provider and it says you have to action that and it’s fantastic and so I I go
around the community and I said there’s this amazing app if you want to get your foot path fixed this is how you do it
and there’s this very interesting response that I get and it says well I’m
not going to tell anybody I’m not going to tell Council Council should know that
this is a problem I’m going well all that tells i’ so now what I do is all
that tells me is you want to be a victim oh I’m here so uh
so that that that I think is is a really interesting like I’m
quite sharp now because I’ve I’ve heard of it so much I’m like well that just tells me you want to be a a victim so
that idea of agency and when we forgo the sense of power and it it’s not a
straightforward line like it’s not like I’m going to take my energy it’s a sort
of a habitual response and I know that as a woman I’ll often sort of have to
yield to a guy or it feels like I have to yield a lot because it’s a guy and I
go okay well you know what you’re doing I don’t and there’s a lot of conditioning that comes in that
space and and and there is that so I guess the
idea of in relating to to this to time is that we can we have this idea that
you do something once and that is therefore a decision in that moment but
actually you do lots of decisions and it becomes very habitual and this is a lot what we’re
working with in meditation is the habitual response because you’re doing the same sort of similar response in
similar circumstances over many many
years and decades that actually by the time you get to my
age at 57 then it’s like well I don’t want to do that anymore but now I’m
having to re retrain the mind to do that to respond differently and that is a a
sort of that is a big part of meditation practice is changing how we respond due
to these long in um habit just always responding
similarly so that is a Time mechanism so there you go that’s that’s the end of my
Spiel no it is in well the whole victim mentality this victim victimizer or uh
program it’s another program running I feel and another way we can look at it is bully bully victim programming and
then hero you know there’s the bully the victim and then there’s the hero and so these are archetypes that are
running in our society quite rampantly yes please I have to just put in something here that was one of the
weirdest things about watching American sort of social media like happy news is
they go he’s a hero like he’s a hero and and they just I’m going he just went and
he got of helped a kid you know like he’s not a hero she’s not a Shero it’s
like she just did a sort of an a orary boring civic duty like this is just
called the social contract it’s not like they’re amazing they just decided they would do the right thing by somebody
yeah and then it’s it’s it’s it’s loaded too so it’s so much Division and then people use it as a perjorative too oh
what a hero that guy was you know and so it’s it’s been one of these words that
have been watered down and it’s not are um and overdone overwrought and it’s not
helpful anymore more you know um but there there is a sense that there’s a sense of Role Models responsibility in
in oh I’m no hero you know and then this kind of defensive modest that has to
then nobody will want to take the the claim or the exact opposite well yeah I am a hero I need more recognition and
you know that’s me and pump up my ego so it there’s just so many things that can
go wrong and do go wrong around this notion and it’s another time to divide
people and so yeah this how do we get out of this this bully victim hero uh
archetype thing that just gets us Way Off Track like we have on you know in our in
our Med in our conversation we’ve just been talking about heroin brought us brought us off track although I would
say in our meditations we we do have a fantasy land which says I’m the hero I’m
the good guy here they’re bad and even if I’m bad actually they just need to
know why the context for but because I’m basically a good person they just didn’t
try hard enough to look at how good I am underneath my Badness like this is how
we do and so this concept so I think that there is a sort of well I think what we’re talking about a lot here is
the the notion of Storytelling and time in meditation practice
yeah and that’s that’s another thing we can see all these distorted thoughts we have too right the opposite of what when
he was just talking about oh I can never do anything right why do I always mess up in these situations right um I I go
this I keep trying and I keep failing I I suck I’m a nobody so that’s the
inferior version of this when we’re on the cushion we can see how the mind will will
storytelling to go talk to to this person and then running all these potential conversations my head they’re
going to say this and then I’ll say this but it then but then if they call me out on this then I’ll say this this or this
and it it’s just it can be really maddening or just to sit back and watch the mind have its uh it’s Heyday with
things like that but this sense of notion and time I never really thought about it um well going back to an
earlier Point too um with this in meditation training so one of the
classic meditation objects is the breath and so this is a a great object for so
many reasons one of it is it doesn’t have a huge emotional charge there’s so well that’s not always the case not
always the case that’s right it’s a good good point someone that has um asthma breathing issues has some kind of trauma
or abuse around breath I would just say I would venture to guess for a majority of people though there’s not a lot of
emotional charge around it right it’s not this juicy topic where okay it’s
done this to me and I need to do this or what can I get from it um you know it’s G to be so great when I get this or how
can I get it you know it’s it’s it’s a fairly neutral so um for a lot of people
I know for me it’s not very fascinating it’s not very lucrative uh it’s not very scintillating and so it takes a lot of
time and effort and attention to really get into it but then once it hits a Groove once that needle Gets In the
Groove then it can be I can really tune in and dial in and get more absorbed and
notice subtleties and notice how it feels really good when I when I allow it to to feel that way so it gives our
attention like a habitual break from all the other um habit patterns and
tendencies of the mind and that goes on and and and kind of neutralizes that in
a way and creates this container open space in order to see things in a
different way and to notice what’s there right and also training this muscle that I not everything needs my attention all
the time it’s okay to just let things happen in the background let them play out and do their thing and not get
entangled or involved and jump after them which I constantly do over and over again in meditation and then wake up
that I don’t I have the choice that I can come back to this object and build continuity around it now when when we
talk about a notion of time in that the other thing I want to say about uh when people are practicing J
meditation it’s one of the jic masteries is to emerge at a certain time I mean
this is these J meditators okay I want to come out in exactly one hour from now
without any kind of bells or indicators and and they can come out so this this notion that um time is kind of created
or arbitrary on a watch is real interesting when compared to something like that how the heck does that happen
this is a common thing you talk to really deep practitioners of jna and this is one of the things they can do
they can set this resolve to emerge in an hour exactly almost to the minute or second and they can do it so how does
that work you know I’ve never heard any explanations on this uh so that other than the mind can be a very powerful
thing right um yeah so we’ve just got a new person radiant Guardians says hi
guys with a little bit of a wave so very nice to have you here thank you very much for joining us radiant Garden
Guardians now I think a team of four so we’ve got five people watching now and I
think I’m two of them so so very nice to have you nice to have
you join us and you know you can think oh well I haven’t got very many people but it’s just actually so lovely to have
people join us it’s so beautiful now my husband’s just mowing the lawn can can
you hear noise at all is it anything problematic no there was a little bit back but they they do um it it filters
what I think they have a noise reduction on this that works pretty well so great uh yeah so em is also very happy
to be here and ah and radiant Garden says my pleasure with a little love heart and an emoticon with it and love
heart with eyes and a little face and then I guess is it hands or shoulders like a Shucks I guess maybe so it’s very
nice to have you both here engaged online that’s lovely it really makes it
difference actually surprising how much of a difference it makes and I’m thinking about maybe going back to
insight timer here that we have to not mention the uh y u term uh on there
because they don’t allow any mention of any platforms but I think that’s a possibility now with this new computer
okay okay so Wendy what is your let’s let’s sit up and reflect on a medit a meditation session do you even consider
time I know I just sit a timer usually or I say I’m going to meditate for 40 minutes and then as it gets close but
Moment by moment this is one variable that I don’t really pay much attention to you know um I think it could it comes
into place when we measure things right I think time is established in our world to measure distance and the rate of
speed right from one point to another like you mentioned earlier so in meditation when we’re dealing with uh
moment after moment you know that is kind of in relation or opposition or how
does it correlate to uh meditation uh session duration you know what I mean so
if if we divide our experience into moment to moment to moment right each moment of the INB breath each moment of
the out breath each moment of the pause between breaths it’s a different experience than saying okay
well um that’s been two minutes three minutes and Ju Just my experience of
time I don’t really have a sense of time so much either other when other people are involved then I and I have to be
somewhere then I need to look at a clock or bring a watch or look at the clock to know what time it is in order for them
because uh out now that I’m out of the corporate work world and you know and
then deadlines I want to talk about deadlines too I know this is a lot but what I really notice is when I’m up
against the deadline then we talk about rushing and we can talk about deadlines and rushing and pressure and things like
this or somebody like me that’s probably an Old Hippie or Beach Bum now where I just don’t really have any kind of
obligations probably people think I’m a slacker and you know what’s this guy doing I mean he’s a bomb or whatever so
I think that’s enough to throw out there too within the meditation session then yeah I was just thinking there’s a an a
guy I know you know he’s just a very general acquaintance and a theory is he’s he’s deting but you know he’s got
this wicked sense of humor and he comes out with these and we’re not not sure how much of it is the dementia and how
much of it is him just kind of being a bit dodgy on that one and he says Ah you
know a deadline I mean the thing about a deadline is how do you deal with that with the counsil you can’t just bury it
like it’s dead it’s a line well how do you bury you you’ve got to get permissions from the council you can’t
just do it anywhere so it was just fantastic a great way of thinking about
deadlines is like what are you going to do with the deadline I mean where do you P where do you freeze do you put it in
the freezer do you put just that’s great yeah it’s just
he’s just so sharp he has these fantastic ways of looking at it so look
I get caught up on that and I’m I was just thinking you know I’m quite tired
like not not just today but just generally I feel a bit emotionally drawn
out and in a a few weeks time I’m going away for a Meditation Retreat so I I’m
like holding my breath sort of a little bit for the next few weeks time so that
for those days six days I can be there and I
can just you know relax and have no sense of
time except that I know that when I get there I’m just going to be like okay so what time is the breakfast dinner do I
have my timer do I have my like what do I do what do I do and then where am I supposed to be and what if I’ve got a
problem and so I it’s not like I go I’ve
got to get there and then I’m I’m there and then what do I do and where do I going to be that we have this huge
regulation and it permeates everything permeates the mind to such an
extent and you know I I do like that saying you know stop the world I want to
get off because I often think stop the world I want to get off
this is really good it was there was a point a low point in my life and it’s just like I wanted the world to stop
right because it was just it was too much and there is no option to do that and it’s it’s it’s to be stuck in that
uh perception is really kind of super disempowering right like I can’t control
anything really um I want it to stop and it’s not going to where can I get just a
a f like five minute a reprieve from all this because it won’t you know it
doesn’t slow down and then you know that is Dua to me you know that that right
there right in right in the face and wow that’s a it’s a really powerful notion
and yes people are they talk like a slave to the clock I think this is kind of like a saying in English right this
whole notion this big picture perception of time it seems like it’s an enemy a
lot of the times we’re always fighting against it we never have enough you know we can’t control it time waits for no
man um but how can we make a Time an ally you know is it possible to look at
time as an ally and I I see the wisdom in this but I haven’t actualized that or
realized it yet because there’s so much of a habit pattern that you know I’m up
against the clock that’s another one right racing to beat the clock so this notion of yeah pressure and
deadlines and have to get things done at a certain time and you know um and some
people take it really seriously and some people don’t and there’s a clash between that too you know uh like let’s say you
know when you’re in the medical industry and somebody’s life depends on a certain amount of administering a certain
medical procedure and a certain amount of time in a certain way um that’s really important right journalists are
up against deadlines pretty much all the time you know and they’re they’re burned out in a mess a lot of times trying to
think of someone else that just pretty much operates all on deadlines if you’re in a university right you have a paper
or an exam and so that’s another deadline that most people have dealt with in the schooling system and um but
that’s the nice thing in meditation we don’t have these deadlines right you you can a lot a certain amount of time to
your meditation even if it’s just one minute and it doesn’t have to be a huge hard
fast deadline unless something else is coming up and how many times have we had in our schedule Oh something’s over a
little bit too early or runs a little bit too late and then it’s oh that we have this notion it’s going to throw off my whole day you know and then we you
know and then how is the heart and mind with that or that notion of just um uh
this this in we we see something’s coming like we can see the train wreck
coming and we we can’t really stop it and we you know and then how are we with it when we can’t control it and we can’t
get our way uh yeah that’s a really important spiritual question
yeah I I was just thinking about I think one of my sort of most best moments in
meditation uh really I was listening a lot to OT tol’s talk it was an interview
with Christa tippet I think 2007 or something like that and I had it on repeat so I was listening to it a lot a
lot a lot on the spirit of things it was great great um yeah I loved it
and he said you know there is no other time there is only this there is not the
future there is not the past there is just this I mean it took me about 50 times before I actually got it but yeah
this idea that you know I should be done I should be finished this by now well you you can’t be finished finished it
before you have finished it it’s not possible to have should have done it by
now because you are where you are and things are where they are and there is
no this sort of fictitious time that we make things up as if some in some
separate reality which is non-existent it’s like well we might as well say I don’t know pink unicorns are in that
time because none of it is real sorry to tell you about the pink unicorns I don’t
mean to be rude but I don’t think they’re real well not unless you get a dose of
acid I guess but or a certain type of Imaginary Land but yeah Wendy it’s it go
ahead you’re you’re continue yeah oh No Just and then I realized there is
nowhere else to go there’s nothing else to do and you know I was speaking with my my friend at the gym and and she’s
she’s manages the gym and she’s getting all these things done she’s frazzled and exhausted and I’ve got to get this done
that done this done this done and I just said the only place you can be is here there is actually no other place you can
be and it really shifted everything now that doesn’t mean to say that I don’t go I’ve got to get this done I’ve got to
get that done and but it does mean that every now and again I go there is only this time where I am is where I am there
is nowhere else I can possibly be other than just In This Moment was such a
fantastic Moment of clarity when I finally just got it these perceptions are are you
know of past present and future uh one one what really drove that home for me is you know um when we’re in meditation
a lot of times the mind is projecting into the future or in the past remembering the past and what we what
come to realize that at least this one perception of viewing things what Wendy’s talking about is the past is
over and it’s it’s not coming back you know the way it you know every moment is
unique and it’s it’s it’s never going to happen this way again and when we’re
stuck in the past remembering the past and it seems so real it’s still happening right here
right now in it’s in our mind it’s happening here in the mind it might seem like it’s in the past but actually that
recall that memory recall is happening right here now same way with planning in the future anticipating future things it
might seem so real you know we might um visualize the future and it might unfold
that way due to to Habit patterns the matter of the fact though right it’s actually occurring right here right now
uh um a perception or thought um Consciousness in the mind happening now
it hasn’t that’s that’s Yet to Come the future is not here yet and it’s uncertain so this way of viewing time
and then then we get down to what is this present moment even and can we even
let go of that if we let go go of that if that’s not even here too you know or
how much we cling even to the present moment then that’s a go ahead go ahead
yeah so I don’t even know how can you cling to the present moment you might try to fix time and say well that was
then but you you you aren’t in there is no the now there is no the moment there
is only just this there’s nothing else exactly this so even this is there how
much can we even let go of this you know and I don’t know but I mean yeah it’s
like are we clinging even to our experience now you know what I mean of uh of anyway I don’t know that’s that’s
kind of more of a deep thing that needs to be looked at in meditation but we can do it next time possibly when we going
back into our our meditation sessions and instead of viewing um our experience
by okay I got to be here at this time this has been this much time what happen happens Moment by Moment by moment and
as our practice progresses we can notice more moments more moments after more
moments right more subtle and subtle things that happen Moment by moment in this momentary experience how many more
times am I going to say that by the way we we we can we perceive this time
we can perceive experience in this manner instead of uh majure you know necessarily measuring things the way we
do in our external World by you know I need to go to the store at 5:00 and then I need to be home by 6:00 and then we’re
always going from one destination to the other and just ignoring everything else
basically to get from point A to point B and then to point C and then point D and ah but now I need to go you know it
never ends and that’s the other notion that that’s another definition of Dua nothing is ever completed you know and
how okay are we with that you know as you were talking I was thinking about there is this idea that
uh you can’t possibly have traffic congestion because this is bad because
it holds people up and it stops productivity I was like well actually congestion has some benefits in that
people Drive slowly so you have fewer collisions so therefore you save lives by having actually a a a poorer what
they call level of service uh so so there is an idea about
when you build a road and the reason they make them fast so drivers can go quickly on them is because that is
somehow saving time and they’ve put a dollar value on that or Danish Crown
value on that and that’s that’s how they measure whether a road is going to be
viable which is stupid because there’s a whole lot of other things that go into
it’s a very very narrow framework of of way to look at it and so I think what I
notice about whether it’s an intrin sense of time I am here I am there’s
nothing else here it’s just me here like this or whether it’s something that I am
feel it feels externally imposed like exam Tim taes University studies or I’ve
got to get to the shops before it closes or whatever it is that’s an external thing so there is a difference there
just in those two yeah definitely but we’re at time Josh that’s a good one
Wendy yes we are and how do you feel about roundabouts maybe that’s the answer to all our problems on roads round no you
you have to be careful about roundabouts because it depends on the design you don’t want it depends it
depends it depends on ramps and off-ramps I’m sure there’s there’s things going on with those that are just
yeah all right well I think yeah wrap this up um thank you all for listening
joining and yeah we’d love to hear comments about your experiences of time wisdom around time you know gripes and
complaints if you find out where I can write a letter to the uh time agency and
uh where I can send my complaints about daylight savings time in the states um all this stuff yeah whatever reach out I
live in a I live in a state which doesn’t have daylight savings so we never have to worry about some rational
wise people there no they were they were pooed at the time so just a heads up I want to say radiant Guardians and M re
thank you very much for joining us it’s so so lovely to have you online with us as we are here and if you’re still here
look we’ve got four people watching us so I think whoever it is is bumped off has come so that’s great and it’s h you
guys have a great weekend wherever you are and Josh you have a great weekend
too well I just can Echo that again for you as well Wendy so may you all
experience the the most best optimal time for the most best optimal reasons and
chill
Integrating Presence 
38 thoughts on “How Time Meditates | February 23, 2024 “Meditation Q & A With Wendy Nash” #18”