The Paradox of Being Present
The present moment doesn’t exist as you think it does
Over a decade ago, I fell out of time for a split second.
I was on a train, staring out the window at the landscape rushing past me. I remember thinking the sunlight was intense. I had spent the weekend at a spiritual retreat filled with meditation, energy healing, and breath work.
My heart was full, and as I was heading back home to New York, I wasn’t thinking about much of anything.
And then I wasn’t thinking at all.
I was the landscape. I was the sunlight. I felt no separation. No thought. No emotion. No time.
And then it was over, as my mind rushed in with the thought, “That was amazing!”
I couldn’t tell exactly how long the episode had lasted — no longer than a second or two — but my return to time coincided with thinking.
With that thought, I was no longer the landscape or the sunlight. I was engaged with the memory of what had happened.
What I felt in that moment, however, was that I was truly present in a way I had never been. I was not simply in the present moment or watching the present unfold.
