Gino (English Sutra Study class)

What time is it?

What time is it? It’s the question of the moment, the ever present, always continuing moment. It’s always now. The time is now and it’s always the same time. It’s just that we don’t realise it, or that we forget… we forget that it’s now. We aren’t paying attention that it’s now. The mind is dwelling in the past or in the future, one concern after the other, one issue after the other, layer upon layer, deeper and deeper, always distracting us from the present moment.

To grasp the present moment, to live in the present moment is the awareness of the Buddha. That’s where the Bodhi mind is. It’s now. The awareness of now, in that moment… this moment… that’s where we lose our ego, that’s where we find our enlightenment. That’s where all things are reduced to… perfection.

In this (now) present moment, that is where our pure awareness is, that is where we are, but it is not always where our attention is. If we can rid our mind of all of the disruptive thoughts, all of the pressing concerns, all of the worries and fears… if we can cast aside the complexities of this samsaric world, this fraudulent existence that we are immersed in… we can see reality, we can comprehend ultimate reality and we find that… we find that reality is Śūnyatā, its empty. We find that our existence, our awareness is without condition… is unconditioned… and we attain the supreme enlightenment.

We attain the supreme enlightenment right now. We don’t attain it in the past; we don’t attain it in the future. We don’t achieve the Bodhi mind anywhere else except now.

If we can realise now, if we can…if I can release all of the grasping desires for this and that, all of my conceptual attachments… I can abide in the moment. That is the challenge.

But it is not a challenge demanding focused exertion. There is no effort required. The unconditioned Dharma needs nothing, is sustained by nothing, is reliant upon nothing, so it is in realising nothing that we succeed. We attain nothing, for there is nothing to be attained. In the present moment, our original mind, our perfect awareness opens like a flower across the field of our consciousness.

What time is it?

May we cultivate the field of our consciousness so the flower of supreme enlightenment may take root and blossom.

A Mi Tuo Fo.