One Hundred and Eleven

The moment is irreducible. It has no extension physically or temporally. In the moment the universe has no motion, no mass, no energy; it simply is.

Mary and I have three grandsons. Kai, the oldest, has only lately come to the point where he is able to identify with his own uniqueness as an independently existing individual. He has slipped away from unity with the moment in a way that his younger brother David and cousin Tony have yet to experience. Kai has reached a point where his memories are numerous and rich enough to form an identifiable past from which he is able to conceptualize the idea of a realizable future. He has moved decidedly away from the moment of his life and stepped onto the timeline of his life. David and Tony have yet to complete the same transition as Kai. Their pasts have yet to gel and become consciously recallable and as yet they show no signs that the idea of a future holds any meaning for them. They are still very close to the moment though moving steadily away from it.

My mother will be celebrating her 89th birthday in three weeks. Over the past couple of years dementia has eroded not only her memories but begun to eat into her very notion of self. The timeline of her life has been considerably shortened due to her condition. Her past is a chronologically jumbled collection of images and, as far as I can tell, her notion of future events has become considerable foreshortened. She moves now closer and closer to the moment; opposite the direction being taken by her great grandchildren.

The kids are separating from the moment. In moving away from the moment they are losing some of the intimacy with the universe they previously enjoyed as their consciousnesses become focused more on what has been and yet may be than what is. Life is working on them in ways that are enabling them to stand and function as independent individuals. Each of them is like a little expanding universe within the larger totality; a totality they're becoming less and less intimate with. Mom, on the other hand, due to the shrinking of her past and the erosion of her awareness of the future is moving closer to the moment and, perforce, becoming reintegrated with the universe. The universe is exerting its will and is in the process of enfolding her back into itself.

To practice the Way to Union with Ki is to realize that the barrier that separates me from the universe is actually permeable and that, via dedicated training and study, while I may not know the moment itself, I may approach it without limit and so increase my awareness of my union with the universe that provided me with my existence.