Prajnatara's "It's the Attitude that Counts"

The Fireplace Records, Chapter 16

Prajnatara's "It's the Attitude that Counts"

Bill and Frank were Dharma Buddies for a number of years.  Their 'Book of the Month Club' choice in April was the "Book of Serenity" translated and introduced by Thomas Cleary, 1988. They met at the local Brewed Awakenings coffee shop to discuss the book.

Bill opened the Book of Serenity and read from Case 3: The Invitation of the Patriarch to Eastern India:

"A Rajah of an east Indian country invited the twenty-seventh Buddhist Patriarch Prajnatara to a feast. The Rajah asked him, "Why don't you read scriptures?" The Patriarch said, "This poor wayfarer doesn't dwell in the realms of the body or mind when breathing in, doesn't get involved in myriad circumstances when breathing out. I always reiterate such a scripture, hundreds, thousands, millions of scrolls."

Frank said, "I know that some people constantly, mostly silently, repeat a sacred name or phrase or prayer as part of their spiritual training.  When I was a boy we said the Hail Mary Rosary in our Catholic Church. Yogis have their 'Om Mani Padme Hum.' Transcendental meditators had a 'mantra'.  Koan meditators had their 'Hua Tou.'  Pure Landers chant 'Namo Amida Butsu.' Nichiren encouraged worship of the Lotus Sutra and the repetition of the Sutra's Title: 'Namu Myoho Renge Kyo'. Taoists repeat verses from the Tao Te Ching. Christians sing the same favorite hymn over and over."

Bill said, "Good observations, Frank.  Just being alive today and able to think or behave in some way about our spiritual development, even by chanting, is a great opportunity.  However, I have some reservations about Prajnatara's path. When we are sleeping we come close to not dwelling in the realms of body and mind and we don't get involved with myriad circumstances when we are sleeping.  Does my snoring turn the scrolls of scriptures?" Even an evil demon sleeps, does it reiterate scriptures while unconscious?"

Frank said, "A poor traveling wayfarer like Prajnatara cannot haul around delicate paper scriptures. So he must find ways to interpret the ordinary in a sympathetic manner, find ways to use breathing to focus awareness, and find ways to become more detached from desires and less entangled in myriad circumstances. Whether he sits, stands or walks, if he/she keeps the Buddhist attitude he can be an awakened and compassionate person. By being this way, acting like a Buddha, is another way of turning the scriptures, honoring them, if not by reading them because of impoverished circumstances."

Bill said, "Yes, Yes. Sometimes, reading is just not feasible or possible. One's attitude is the primary concern."

Bill added, "Changing the subject, I read that the great California translator and commentator of over 80 classic Taoist and Buddhist sacred scriptures, Thomas Cleary, passed away.  He translated the book we are studying, 'The Book of Serenity.'  I have been reading his translations since 1977."

A Student's Considerations: 

Somewhere, Somehow, Someone is Chanting
A Funeral Chant:

Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Rest in Peace
Requiescat in Pace
Requiescat in Pace
Rest in Peace
Rest in Peace
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha
Gate Gate Para Gate Para Sam Gate Bodhi Swaha

No More Breathing In or Breathing Out
The Prayer Wheels Turn Nevertheless

Related Links, Resources, References

Koans: BOS 03, 

Thomas Cleary (1949-2021)

Refer to my Cloud Hands Blog Posts on the topic of Koans/Dialogues.

The Daodejing by Laozi    Best? 

Pulling Onions  Over 1,043 One-line Sayings by Mike Garofalo

Chinese Chan Buddhist and Taoist Stories and Koans

Taoism

Buddhism

Fireplaces, Stoves, Campfires, Kitchens, Pots, Firewood

Chinese Art

Tai Chi Chuan and Qigong

Meditation Methods

Zen Koan Books I Use

Koan Database Project

Brief Spiritual Lessons Database Project: Subject Indexes

Sparks: Brief Spiritual Lessons and Stories
Matches to Start a Kindling of Insight
May the Light from Your Inner Fireplace Help All Beings
Taoist, Chan Buddhist, Zen Buddhist, Philosophers
Catching Phrases, Inspiring Verses, Koans, Meditations
Indexing, Bibliography, Quotations, Notes, Resources
Research by Michael P. Garofalo

The Fireplace Records
By Michael P. Garofalo

Thomas Cleary (1949-2021)

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

 The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael P. Garofalo

            

                
        August Offerings, Red Bluff CA, 2010, MPG

 

 

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

12.6

The Gardening Sutra: Excerpts
Pulling Onions

 

 

A garden recreates itself daily; we seldom step in the
     same garden thrice.
We don't erase the past, we just build more and bigger blackboards.
The present is made from the past.
Time creeps, walks, runs and flies - it is all about moving things.
Chaos breaks its own rules to allow Order to play.

How can gardening be considered a "leisure time" activity?
Always leave extra time for unraveling the hose.
Gardeners turn into the soil their lifetime.
Time may wait for no man, but seems to muddle and poke
     quite slowly for gardeners.
Springtime for birth, Summertime for growth;
     and all Seasons for dying.

Put the right plant in the right place at the right time in
     the right way - and you won't go wrong.
Winter does not turn into Summer; ash does not turn
     into firewood - on the chopping block of time.
A garden flourishes in the mind's time of last season,
     next season, and now.
Gardening requires no commuting time.
In the right place at the right time,
     tomato worms on tomato vines.

Your pocket knife will be its dullest at just the right time.
Gardening is the right sport for a lifetime of pleasures.
Gardening sometimes takes a few hours of a day,
     but adds weeks of pleasure to your life.
The time you have wasted on your garden
     is what makes it priceless.
One purpose of a garden is to stop time in one place.

 

Annuals disappear, shrubs perish, trees die, and
     gardeners are buried; death is the flower of time.
In an instant there is nothing - Time produces Nature.
By the time you peel off five layers of reality,
     it's hard to recall the first.
It's a long time between my garden and the Pacific Ocean.
Time will tell, but we often fail to listen.

The "eternal truths" are sometimes clearly false.
Gardening teaches us to take our time, slow down,
     and wait in peace.
Gardeners learn to live in worm time, bee time, and seed time.
Time will not pass you, but it will follow very close behind you.
Preparation and follow up take up more time than doing the deed.

Springtime flows in our veins.
Silence - never misquoted, sometimes misunderstood,
     often meaningful.
Leave enough time for some pointless behavior
     to reveal your deeper desires.
The seed idea for "God" is springtime.
Things always go downhill, fall apart, wear out...
     the arrow of Time pierces everything.

 

Time prevents too much from happening at once.
A million years and a second have the same
     feeling for the dead gardener.
All metaphors aside - only living beings rise up in the Springtime;
     dead beings stay quite lie down dead.
Any gardener who is not using the scientific method
     will waste time and money.
Take the time to melt into the Details.

Time is rooted in Place.
Most of the time, we just borrow from the past.
Sometimes the present alters our interpretation of the past;
     most often the past surrounds and infects the present.
Time is on your side when you are young.
Leisure can open a window to the breezes of insights,
     and a clear view of the Trees of Time.

We get things done when there is little time left.
Our cash limits and time constraints both prune our gardens.
The second hand of time ticks on---
     measuring our past, time after time.
Beings are Becomings---for the time-being.

Perfection can be the opponent of betterment.
Without vagueness we are bored with literalness.
Borderline cases are where events become really interesting.
I may not be able to precisely define religious nonsense,
     but I know it when I hear it.

A coastline may be impossible to measure,
     but is still beautiful.
You can’t slowly boil the frog unless
     it can’t jump out of the pot.
A “heap” of something desired becomes an issue
     when the price is discussed.
Gratefully, shit happens!
The ten thousand things are more enchanting
     than the Silent One.

Walking needs earth, space, and the walker.
Sometimes, just one 'thing' is critical
     because twenty other 'things' are just so.
Gardening is a kind of deadheading---
     keeping us from going to seed.
Don't interfere, be still, and listen to the litanies of bees.

Tooth and nail, and the stench of a dead animal on the wind.
When life gives you onions, it stinks.
A rake is spaces held together by steel.
In the student's mind there are few possibilities,
     in the teacher's mind there are many;
          but only time to realize very few.

 

Mother Nature is always pregnant.
Time creeps, walks, runs and flies -
     it is all about moving things.
Dogmatists are less useful than dogs.
Take life with a grain of salt, and a icy margarita.
The best things in life are more expensive than you think.

Rather than "love mankind," I'd rather admire a few good people.
Some flourish when crowded together, others don't.
Garbage In, Compost Out.
It is more about You and Now, rather than Them and Back Then.

 

While gardening the borders between work
     and play become blurred.
When gardening, look up more often.
Just the right words can be worth more
     than a thousand pictures.
Death's door is always unlocked.
A flower needs roots; beauty a society of minds.

A callused palm and dirty fingernails precede a Green Thumb.
A working hypothesis is far better than a belief.
Only two percent of all insects are harmful.
Why are they all in my garden?
Create your own garden, the god's certainly won't.
That something is eternal is unverifiable.

Most laws of Gardening are merely local ordinances.

Too save some time, don’t let them get a foot in the door.
Some slippery slopes are actually improvements or fun.
Butterflies and bees flapping their wings don’t actually
     create hurricanes, but we are very thankful they facilitate
     the emergence of fruits in the billions.
Without metaphors we can barely speak.

Just because you reject the big request, don’t be
     fooled into accepting the smaller request.
Finding a middle ground for agreement may
     be just half of a solution, and the wrong solution.
Sometimes the wisdom of the crowd is quite unwise and unfair.

Chaos breaks its own rules to allow Order to play.

Failures, disorder and death are the
     Grim Reaper of Entropy at work.
Somehow, someway, everything gets eaten up, someday.
The meaning is lost in the saying - a nature mystic's dilemma.
Vigorous gardening might help more than a psychiatrist's couch.
A gardener is no farmer, he is much too impractical.

No garden lasts for long - neither will you.

Shade, in the summer, is as precious as a glass of water.
A wise gardener knows when to stop.
Gardens are demanding pets.
Unclench your fist to give a hand.
The little choices day after day are the biggest issue.

Gardening is but one battle against Chaos.
When life gives you onions, you ain't making lemonade.
Many friendships are sustained by a mutual
     hatred of another person or group.
Read until you go to seed.
What you see depends on when you look.

Beauty is the Mistress, the gardener her slave.

One's "true self" is changing and elusive.
A little of this and a little of that, and some exceptions -
     these are the facts.
Does a plum tree with no fruit have Buddha Nature? Whack!

BU3152, BU929, GC#9

Pulling Onions by Mike Garofalo
     Over 1,000 random quips, one-liners, sayings,
     and "insights" from an old gardener.

Process Philosophy

The History of Gardening: A Timeline From Ancient Times to 2000

The Spirit of Gardening

Months and Seasons

 

The Best Tao Te Ching Website

A typical webpage created by Mike Garofalo for each one of the 81 Chapters (Verses, Sections) of the Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) by Lao Tzu (Laozi) includes over 25 different English language translations or interpolations for that Chapter, 5 Spanish language translations for that Chapter, the Chinese characters for that Chapter, the Wade-Giles and Hanyu Pinyin transliterations (Romanization) of the Mandarin Chinese words for that Chapter, and 2 German and 1 French translation of that Chapter.  

Each webpage for each one of the 81 Chapters of the Tao Te Ching includes extensive indexing by key words, phrases, nouns, verbs, adjectives and terms for that Chapter in English, Spanish, and the Wade-Giles Romanization.  This is the most extensive Concordance of the Dao De Jing available online.  

The Best Dao De Jing Website

Each webpage on a Chapter of the Daodejing includes recommended reading in books and websites, a detailed bibliography, some commentary, research leads, translation sources, and other resources for that Chapter.  

Each webpage includes a Google Translate drop down menu at the top that enables you to read these 81 webpages in over 100 languages.

The Most Complete Daodejing Website

Chapter Indexing, Concordance, for the Tao Te Ching

English Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Spanish Language Daodejing Translators' Source Index

Ripening Peaches: Taoist Studies and Practices

Taoism: A Selected Reading List

Concordance to the Tao Te Ching 

One Old Daoist Druid's Final Journey  

The Most Useful Tao Te Ching Website

Tao Te Ching  Chapter Number Index Standard Traditional Chapter Arrangement of the Tao Te ChingChapter Order in Wang Bi's Daodejing Commentary in 246 CE Chart by Mike Garofalo Subject Index
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
81

Tick-Tock Tractatus by Mike Garofalo, Section 7

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael P. Garofalo

            

                
        August Offerings, Red Bluff CA, 2010, MPG

 

 

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

7.   Psychology: experience, learning,
      phenomenology, sense of time, personal

 

7.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

What you see depends on when you look.
What you hear requires you to listen now.

Time is our 6th Sense.

The Specious Present extends consciousness
to include a pinch of the past,
a pinch of the future,
and the fullness of the now.

Give awareness a 5 second window
for processing perceptions.

Afraid to run out of time.
He had time on his hands, then dropped it.

Your brain works on time schedules.

"The quality of attention determines
the nature of the experience."
Joanne Kyger

BU794, GC§14

The Five Senses

 

7.2
Using vs Knowing

We knew that water was essential,
but did not know it was H2O;
We knew the sun was hot,
but had no concept of nuclear.
It works but we don't know how or why.

BU2930

History of Science

 

7.2.1
Unfolding Time

     Implicate orders of a
Underlying Reality
Unfolding Being... and the
     Explicate orders of
ordinary common things.

BU1149, GC§7

David Bohm

Net of Indra

 

7.3.1
End Game

They ran out of time
The game ended on time
They lost this time.
They all got back to the bus in time.
They will do better next time.

BU2835

 

7.3.1.1
The Game of Death

I'm too old
for any real Destiny
except for Death
creeping up to me, tagging Me:
"Your It!"

BU891, GC§36

 

7.3.1.2
Impermanence of Samsara

Samsara is Nirvana?
10,000 Things are Nothing?
Past and future are gone (Empty?).
The Present is gone in a Flash.
What's left? Samsara won't last.

BU918

 

7.3.1.3
Silent Lips

          The sting of Death,
the sharp pains of unseeing,
the final closing of the eyes,
the silent lips of emptiness...
faces lost forever in future times.

BU1246

 

7.3.2
Better Next Month

That such and such is the case
May piss me off for all the day
Why should it be this damn way?

Next month, such and such will not be the case.
I will be very pleased come that day.

BU3431

Quintain Poetry

Time Explained: Experience, Consciousness and Relativity.
By Alan Bennett, 2026.

Reading Wittgenstein 1975-

 

7.3.2.1
Timely Emotions

Emotions cluster around Immediacy.
Distant futures lack emotional density.
We feel very little about 2222 CE.
Few have any passion for far distant unrealities.
We lust after, say, Hot SEX Today! Fuck the Future!

BU3371

Emotions and Time

 

7.3.3
Take it Slow

Travel light
Even yesterday is a heavy backpack.
Travel slowly
Even tomorrow can wait---
Move on, don't hesitate.

BU2890

Time, Change, Freedom:
An Introduction to Metaphysics
By Nathan Oaklander

 

7.3.4
Differences and Distinctions

Things that look the same
are often really different---
in a web of new respects as to usage
in a web of words wedded meanings
in a different place in space/time.

BU2968

Appearances

 

7.3.5
Time Snuck By

The time sauntered by
invisibly, casually, punctually...
I barely noticed.
so busy with pressing deeds---
time flew by in a gentle breeze.

BU3083

"... time is not a linear flow, as we think it is,
into past, present, and future. Time is an
indivisible whole, a great pool in which all
events are eternally embodied and still have
their meaningful flash of super-normal or
extra-sensory perception, and a glimpse of
something that happened long ago in our
linear time."
- Frank Waters, Mountain Dialogues, 1981

 

7.3.5.1
The Time of Inner Mind

Under the Water
of my mind
an unconscious Sea
of Memories
guide me through time

Keep me on a course line
send me some signs
become conscious at times...
freedom may a fiction be
controlled by unknown destinies.

Bring the Unconscious,
Sub-Conscious, ego, and Id,
Collective Unconscious figured in—
Over the waves of Consciousness
the flotsam of Unknowns are adrift.

BU9

The Gushen Grove Sonnets

The Five Senses

 

7.3.5.2
Opportunities for Change

Aging provides
more opportunities
for becoming the person
you should
have been.

BU995

Aging Wisely

 

7.3.5.3
Bent and Twisted

My experiences at times
have not damaged or broken me;
     but, indeed,
     have bent and twisted
          my identity.

BU3528

How to Live a Good Life
Advice from Wise and Respected Persons

 

7.3.5.4
Who Am I?

my identity
exists for me
resting on the shoulders
of my memories
substantially

BU3131

Personal Identity

Identity

 

7.3.5.5
A Conscience for the Future

The Id is only Present Tense Alive,
focused on immediate needs
and drives flowing bodily, incessantly,
facing only nowness craving sensuality---
The Super-Ego, Conscience, has future schemes.

BU3355

Freudian Psychology

Conscience

 

7.3.5.6
Perspectives Towards Time

Past-positive: In the good old days...
Past-negative: My childhood was painful...
Present-hedonistic: I want some fun now...
Present-fatalistic: Que Sera, Sera
Future-options: Here is the schedule for tomorrow...
Transcendental-future: We want to go to Heaven...

The Time Paradox, p. 30-69

BU1575

Oulipos Quintain Museum

Time Research

 

7.3.6
Appear and Disappear

Time is an idea about
how objects/things interact,
move from place to place,
appear and disappear untraced,
are at our hands for work and play.

BU3022

Time - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

An Introduction to the Philosophy of Time, 2018

Time Research

Reism Reism is the doctrine that only things exist.

 

7.3.6.1
subjective/objective?

Our naive perceptions of Time,
Sequenced cause-effect Directionality,
Time headed south for sleepy entropy--
Was this merely my subjective Kantian processing;
or is it true of Nature's own activities?

BU3146

- Immanuel Kant

Kantian Space and Time

Kant holds that we can't have any experience
unmediated by our internal mental temporal
modes of being and understanding. Time is
constructed by our minds.

Reism Reism is the doctrine that only things exist.

 

7.3.7
Heartbeats of Time

The ticking of the metronome:
It's a lie told by a machine.
My heartbeat
     is a truth
          told by my body.

BU3192

Felt Time, by Marc Wittmann, 2017

Time and Free Will, Henri Bergson, 1910

Living in Time, by Barry Allen, 2023

Henri Bergson (1859-1941)

 

7.3.7.2
Stretched Tight

between
two eternities
     my brief life
               is stretched
tight

 

BU1503, BU978

CHB: Time

- Being and Time, by Martin Heidegger

Time is our 6th Sense.

Five Senses

 

7.3.7.3
What to Defer

Live Now in this moment
Cultivate presence within Today.
But, unwise to act exclusively
Within pleasures only of today---
Deferment of pleasure... time to delay.

BU3349

Bundled Up: Volume 2

 

Table of Contents

Everything is Holy Now

 Holy Now

Written by Peter Mayer 
From Million Year Mind, 1999
 
"When I was a boy each week
Sunday we would go to church
Pay attention to the priest
He would read the holy word
And consecrate the holy bread
everyone would kneel and bow
Today the only difference is
Everything is Holy Now
Everything, Everything, Everything is Holy Now

When I was in Sunday School
We would learn about the time
Moses split the sea in two
Jesus made the water wine
I remember feeling sad
That miracles don't happen still
But now I just can't keep track
'Cause everything's a miracle
Everything, Everything, Everything's a miracle

Wine from water is not so small
But an even better magic trick
Is that anything is here at all
So the challenging thing becomes
Not to look for miracles
But finding where there isn't one

Holy water was rare at best
Barely wet my fingertips
But now I have to hold my breath
'Cause I'm swimming in a sea of it

It used to be a world half there
Heaven's second rate hand me down
But now I'm walking with a reverent air
'Cause everything is Holy Now
Everything, Everything, Everything is Holy Now

Read a questioning child's face
Say it's not a testament
That'd be very hard to say
See, see another new morning come
And say it's not a sacrament
I tell you that it can't be done

This morning outside I stood
I saw a little red-winged bird
Shining like a burning bush
Singing like a scripture verse
It made me want to bow my head
I remember when church let out
How things have changed since then
Everything is Holy Now
It used to be a world half there
Heaven's second rate hand me down
But I walk it with a reverent air
'Cause everything is Holy Now

Everything, Everything, Everything is Holy Now"
-  Holy Now by Peter Mayer
  

Tick-Tock Tractatus by Michael P. Garofalo

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

By Michael P. Garofalo

            

                

  

Sections

1. Time: time-space, movement, measurement

2. Past: memories, habits, fixed, specific, tradition

3. Present: now, here-now, day, duration

4. Future: maybe, planned, anticipated, uncertain

5. Passing: change, cycles, aging, growth, death

6. Beginning: renewal, starting, enthusiasm

7. Psychology: learning, experience, knowing

8. Middle: in progress, half-way, steady, living

9. Language: poetry, philosophy, ordinary

10. Silence: inexpressive, nonsense, illogical

11. Mystical: numinous, profound, intense, insightful,

12. Beauty: art, crafts, music, reading/writing

13. Social: ethics, morality, economics, manners, value

14. Philosophy: ethics, history, analysis, arguments, logic

15. History: landmark events, books/printing, memory

16. Eternity: forever, infinite, unimaginable, death

 

Preface

Key to Books Cited

Bundled Up Quintains about Time

Additional Notes

 

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

This work is licensed under a:
Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-No-Derivates
4.0 International License.

2.  Past: memories, tradition
      habits, fixed, artifacts

 

2.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

The past is a debt that the present
     can never repay.

The past is a heavy trunk we eventually
     use as a chair.

The past is a mirror that shows us everything
     but not the face we have now.

The past is the shadow
     cast by the body of the present.

The scaffolding of the world is built
     from the wood of yesterdays.

"We never remember days, only moments."
- Cesare Pavese

BU13

 

2.2
Muscle Memories

The silence of decades dead
        echo endlessly
in every muscle and vein...
Her kisses are remembered
by my tender love lips.

BU19

 

2.3
If You Have a Habit

If you have a habit
You acquired it in your past.
        Bad habits reside in the now.
New habits require:
        Six months of your future time, and
girt and correct actions all along.

BU2932

Atomic Habits. By Jason Clear, 2018.

 

2.4
Ghosts from the Past

I am a ghost
of walking memories
        a past embodied in me
        a past only visible to me
a past defining the real actual me.

BU2885

Yesterday, song by Paul McCartney

 

2.4.1
Evidence from the Past

                Time passes past the past,
        No forensic evidence remains,
No clue to catch that Thief of Time---
        Little evidence, so suspicious,
                Is nowhere and everywhere.

BU3259

Forensic Evidence

 

2.5
Memories Are Made of These

The sundial remembers the light,
     never the clouds.

Each hour is a door that locks itself
     after I pass through.

We remember the past as it
     was supposed to be.

A memory is a fact that has
     lost its ticking pulse.

The past is not a hitching post;
     It's a signpost or a guide post.

BU61

Another Brick in the Wall, Pink Floyd

Doctor My Eyes, Jackson Brown, Playing for Change

Time - Quotations

 

Table of Contents

 

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations

 

3.  Present: now, here-now, day, moment

 

3.1
Generalities, Questions, Quips

The Pause is measured by the time
     it takes me to decide.

An Instant is Imaginary.

"Now" does not specify a specific time.

No time like the present.

One today is worth four tomorrows.

The present is a theater where the play
     is always in its final act.

Time is the only sculptor what works
     without a chisel.

Time is the loom, but the
     thread is purely our own.

BU295

Months and Seasons - Quotations

 

3.2
pristine possibilities

in every moment
today is created anew—
          pristine possibilities
     changing opportunities
          depending on you

BU14

How to Live a Good Life: Advice From Wise Persons, 2002-

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, 2004.

 

3.2.1
Precious Flowers in the Sky

To dance at the still point of the Time beyond time,
     Beyond pasts, within futures, this Moment
Now and forever, beyond minds.
     Not knowing of Who or why
We stroll in rose gardens, and Love.

BU2652

Precious Flowers in the Sky

The Gardening Sutra

 

3.2.2
Truths about the Future?

For the moment, Now, for me,
the world is the case.
Yesterday, the world was
actually the case.
Tomorrow's events are not the case.

Only the Present and Past are Actual
The Future is bounded by possibilities:
uncertainties, unpredictability, chances,
accidents, unknowns, contingencies ...
And quasi-informative necessities.

        God knows the future some say.
                I don't think that way.

Some statements about future events
Are neither necessary nor impossible
and have no truth value.

BU3338

Aristotle's Sea Battle

Problem of Future Contingents

Contingency

Reading Wittgenstein 1975-

 

3.3
Gertrude Returned to Oakland

"There is no there there"
For the Present is aware, that
the Past is no more, only
my obscure faded memories;
just nothing left here anymore.

BU3132

- Gertrude Stein

 

3.4
Many Meanings

'Is' is an insistent perplexity
of sometimes being identity
of sometimes being temporarily
of sometimes being actuality
Yes!, 'is' even postulates = equality.

BU3137

 

3.4.1
The History Told in the Present

     Mythical time
unfolds in present time
unravels in literal minds—
real, imagined, fictionalized,
     Always in Now-Time.

BU2872

 

3.4.2
Time Don't Care

          ticking my life away
indifferent clocks
          everywhere

BU 2649, GC §13

Cuttings: Haiku

 

3.4.3
The Hustles of Time

                        time runs
        does not wait
                        hustles fast
lingers not
cannot stop

BU2866

Bundled Up: Quintains: Volume 5

 

3.4.4
Pausing for a Moment

The Pause is measured by a spoonful of time.
He paused and loudly yawned.
Everyone paused for a moment of remembrance.
He paused and took a deep breath.
It was the pause that refreshes.

Pausing at Lake Quinault

 

3.4.4.1
Try to Name the Moment

'There is no
non-arbitrary way
to pick out what is meant by the
uniquely true
and real present moment."

BU3228, GC §31

A Brief History of the Philosophy of Time, Adrian Bardon, p. 91

 

3.4.4.2
45 Milliseconds

Our sense of the Present
Is not continuous.
It starts and stops in
small discrete steps;
Every 20 to 60 milliseconds.

Felt Time, by Marc Wittmann, 2017, p.27

Paying attention decreases the
milliseconds of awareness smooth flow.

We don't notice the jumps, like watching
a 35mm film at 50Hz, 30-40 frames per second.

BU3354

Film

Film History

 

3.4.5
Instant: Zero Millimeters Per No Seconds

An instant has zero duration;
unlike miles per hour
or meters per second.
Even a millisecond is much longer.
        An instant, like a point in geometry:
        Dimensionless, timeless, imaginary.

BU3047

Instant

 

3.4.6
Really! Nothing Changes?

Some old hold strictly to the Present
As actual given Reality.
                The future is nothing.
                From nothing comes nothing.
So nothing changes---claims Parmenides.

BU3029

- Parmenides (510 BCE)

 

Table of Contents: Index

The Tick-Tock Tractatus

Speaking of Time: The Poetic Investigations