An online community sharing the study and practice of Chan Buddhism
In the moment, there is nothing.  But, as moments move in time, thoughts arise.  Emotions arise.  Existence arises. How are we to fathom this? The only time that truly exists is “now” yet we imagine otherwise.  If we were to live only in “now” would that not mean that we don’t exist?  A moment locked in time is frozen in that moment. 

conscious-time-5inIn the moment, there is nothing.  But, as moments move in time, thoughts arise.  Emotions arise.  Existence arises. How are we to fathom this? The only time that truly exists is “now” yet we imagine otherwise.  If we were to live only in “now” would that not mean that we don’t exist?  A moment locked in time is frozen in that moment.  So from one moment to the next, we are like frames in a movie, colliding one on another, moment after moment. The past happened, so it no longer has any semblance of reality.  The future has not yet happened and so has not yet manifested in reality. If reality is truly in only this moment in time… what does that mean? How are we to fathom this?  The mind/brain works through sequential processing of information which relies on time—on the motion of one “now” to the next “now.” So we create reality out of the perception of a sequence of “nows”. This gives us the sense that there is something called “time”—a before and an after—but it doesn’t give the sense of the present. Of the now. How can we know the “now” if the brain can’t work with it? Something other than the brain/mind must come into the picture.  What is that?