On Time

 In death do we finally outlast time? It's hard to arrive at any concrete place with an abstract concept. We are reminded of Time when we measure the distance from here to there. Something I've been reflecting on since my last visit to a Zendo I started going to recently is just how much less anxiety seeps into my life when I try to cram fewer things into my schedule. Those who know me would agree that I've always had a rather antagonistic relationship with time, either willfully ignoring or being annoyed by its existence. Sometimes I think my seeming inability to keep track of it is a form of protest against a thing that rules so much of our lives. 

Ever since the hecticness of grad school, it seems as though my main goal in life has been moving towards spaciousness. You can't create more hours of the day but you can develop a better relationship with time. Less is more, has become my mantra I tell myself anytime I get the itch to overschedule. There will always be scarcity though, even if I try to pack my schedule with fewer things and give myself more breathing room between appointments. So it seems that simply trying to make fewer plans/appointments is not the way to gain mastery over time, since distractions can still fill up the space. I meditate every Wednesday at the Olympia Zen Center in a dimly-lit room with a handful of people of varying spiritual orientations. All are there to learn about Solo Zen practice and the teachings of the Buddhadharma (if they want). 

I am by no means able to sit there for 45 minutes without a single thought crossing my head but I do challenge myself to practice acceptance and release of those thoughts that crop up. I've formed (another) new mantra around this and other practices I'm trying to cultivate in my life which don't always produce the desired output: just show up. Make the time. Keep showing up no matter what. Even though I don't always feel like it was a "successful" meditation, by the end of the 45 minutes, when the bell chimes, I feel like I've improved my relationship with time, not transcending it but accepting it. I don't feel aggravated by it. The small bumps on the wall in front of me and the sounds of rain outside and my chest rising and falling and the small whoosh of air tickling the small hairs on my upper lip with every exhale from my nostrils are all that matters. I have actively transcended the awareness of Time and gained a brief glimpse at whatever existence lies beyond.  

This is how human mostly engage with Time - as a thing stopping, starting and moving around non-linearly, existing only when we remember it. What of time in the sense of the sum total of one consecutive experience, e.g. an entire lifetime? We hold both conceptualizations in our heads - life as a series of cumulative experiences and life as a singular drop in the ocean of existence. It's not an either/or. They say life is short, memory is long. Given my personal rocky experience with memory, I see it the other way around. While you're in it (life), how can you not fixate on forgetting? What even is memory??

If one's life aim is to gain mastery over Time, then maybe death is an opening up of possibilities. We don't become timeless but maybe we finally squeeze through the anxious tube of limited time and focus our attention on other things.