Gayani Jayathilake

My post-meditation takeaway from this morning was this. What came to mind was a vision of the present moment with rough edges that glitched out the past and future. Imagine a stamp with jagged edges. Inside the stamp is an image. The present. Like that.

As I tried to focus on that one stamp image in front of me thoughts did arise. And once again I noticed how each and every one of them belonged to the past or future. A meandering thought with meaning perceived from knowledge, sentences, or words I had learnt in the past. For those thoughts too I used the stamp vision. Beyond the glitched line the past and future crumbled away into nonexistence.

As I looked closely the present moment was all there was. The now. Within that image were birds. Trees. Wind noise. A car whizzed down the hill. I heard it go to a distance and vanish. Beyond the jagged edges of the stamp the car became a past moment that faded away. One that did not exist for me anymore.

I heard construction noises nearby. I put down words to call it things. To label the noises. Because I knew what they were called. I had learnt them somewhere from someone. Hammering I called it. Thumping. Drilling. But if I had learnt that drilling noise to be called crying then I would have thought that. I hear crying nearby.

I slowly realized how the present moment is not a moment to rush or wipe out. Occurings occur within the present moment. The stamp. I just experience it through my six senses eyes, nose, ears, tongue, body, mind. and let go when it leaves beyond the glitched line to the past.