There is a saying that,

Time is nature’s way of keeping everything from happening at once

and, I have reflected how it is that,

Time is experience, enfolded into time…

What can be added is how what we think of as this place – this world – is included in what we know in a moment of time.

This is really how it is, even if it’s hidden behind our ordinary concepts of ourselves, and each other, and our world.

The Mind Only School, and the Avatamasaka teachings tell us that all is a manifestation of the mind, and if we investigate, we can see just how this is so.

What we call ‘a moment’ comes from previous moments, of education, or experience to today, this hour, that led us to this time.

The past and possible future

If we want to know our past, we can learn to quiet the mind, like holding the steady light of a candle in a temple, without the slightest wind blowing. Then we will be able to see the tapestries clearly, and look upon them for as long as we wish. They will tell us their stories, clearly, unmistakenly, revealed to our intuitive knowing.

If we want to know our ancestors, as Thich Nhat Hanh taught, we need only to look deeply into our hand.

If we calm our mind, and look steadily, the moment opens, and we can see all that is contained in this single moment.

The potential future can also be seen.

I reflect sometimes how everything we see built, or being built is the result of thought. Sometimes it is many people working together, and we can notice the words and the power of their teachers and ancestors. This is true regardless whether we are talking about something noble, or the lack of any worth in the creations.

A single moment can also contain much of possible future time that will unfold, and manifest as physical experience, as for example, when we have a positive intention, to save a life, or to build a school, or to write a book. There are times when we can clearly see all that is held in just one thought.

Some seeds take a hundred years to grow,
but we tend to them now,
and walk in the shade of tall trees…

We can say also then that the material world, space, or the place we would create is also held in one moment of time, in one thought.

On the other side of it, the problem a lot of times is that we don’t fully see the effects of our harmful thoughts, words, and actions until they are manifest, and that that point, we can only try to minimize the harm, and get out of that particular state or realm of suffering.

I think of realms of deprivation we see here, of the slums, the prisons, the barren deserts, and depleted fields where nothing nutritious can grow; I think of the wars, addictions, dissatisfaction, and depression; all the miseries of animal agriculture, and the imbalance between rich and poor here. All these have arise from what’s in people’s hearts and minds.

If we could see all of this ahead of time, we’d surely avoid creating those states.

If we knew that all the worlds that we experience came from our intentions, from our thoughts, and then from our words and actions, we would be so much more careful. We would stop creating the desolate lower realms, instead, every day we would aim to create only pure lands, that are the basis for each of the stages of liberation, and enlightened understanding and activity. We would see the purpose in full of keeping good ethics, of practicing meditation, and cultivating liberating wisdom.

It is accurate in a way to call terrible or beautiful and pure places ’realms’ also. There is truth to that, since they are the way the environment is perceived and experienced by beings there. It is so immediate, and tangible.

And so I offer this prayer:

May we all fully understand how our mind creates our experience,
and know the richness, beauty and potential of this life,
May we completely liberate ourselves from all suffering and its causes,
find freedom and fulfillment,
and lead all others, without a single exception,
to those very same states