The only moment in which we can ever be awakened or liberated is this one.
It's not something that's going to happen Wednesday morning at 10 o'clock and then we drift off in a blissful fog from then on.
Rather, this very moment presents the challenge. This very moment is the moment of enlightenment. We are already enlightened, meaning that who we thought we were is already false and always has been, so that when we really see that we don't exist separately and never did, nothing changes.
The infinite is always doing everything and always has been because there's nothing and nobody else around to do anything, so that when we wake up (in this moment!) and see that, nothing changes.
The only thing that changes is the seeing itself. Seeing what? Seeing the reality that's always already been there.
In this moment something is happening. We're feeling an emotion, let's say a painful one. The separation and burden that all human beings feel is not caused by that emotion itself, but by the conviction that it shouldn't be there. However, we know that it should be there, because it is.
And some thoughts may be going through our mind which support that painful emotion. This is the "story," the belief, the fairy tale that we take as true. We hold onto our stories—"Mary is bad, Bob should appreciate me, I can't do that, the world is a mess, they're wrong," etc., etc.—we clutch at them as if they're real, as if they're reality, and then wonder why we aren't enlightened right now, and envy those lucky souls who "made it" or "got there."
But we are, already. This moment is an enlightened moment. Can we taste it, can we inhale its fragrance? The flower is pouring forth its perfume—can we notice? The moon is pouring its light upon us—can we take it in? Our breathing is happening—can we notice its rise and fall?
There is a tender place inside us each of us where an appreciation of existence, just as it is, already resides. It is not separate from "us" at all, it is that empty place where we let the thoughts and emotions just be, like fish floating in the ocean, and see that we are that infinite oceanic tenderness rather than the fish swimming in it.
Then we are a friend to everything—to the situation, to the person, to ourselves, to the world. Everything floats in that large perspective where we're no longer concerned about promoting the non-existent "me," but where the flow of the river continues nontheless and we find ourselves doing this or that.
Externally we may say "Yes, I'll have dinner with you" or "Thank you for asking, and No," but internally we're saying yes to the process, we're saying yes to our truth in that moment, we're saying yes to the beauty of existence just as it is, we're saying yes to that oceanic tenderness. And then we know in this very moment that we've always been liberated.
In this moment, there is no difference between you and the Buddha except for the quality and receptiveness of your attention. The Buddha (or any other being who was enlightened) inherently had nothing that you don't have available to you right now.
In this very moment, if your attention is truly open and available to whatever is there, with no resistance, you and the Buddha are indistinguishable. Then your heart is open, and the ocean knows itself again.
—jim sloman, for 9/19/01
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