What Time Is It?

We ask 'what time is it?' like swimmers desperately trying to stay together as they drown in eternity. What if, for a few moments, you let go? You drown in the ocean of not -knowing what time it is. You discover you can breathe in the depths. You become infinite again. You are 'in the beginning,' at the first moment of creation. That is meditation.

When you come back to the surface, you ask, 'What time is it?' But now you know it is only a joke.

 Hearing these words, a friend replied, 'I count breaths in my meditation practice. I think it keeps me hung up in time. I don't sink into the depths.'

Yes, we have been been misled by 'traditional' meditation teachers. Religion instructs us to count our way to enlightenment. That is why we seldom arrive. To speak candidly, nothing could be sillier than counting 'planes' of consciousness, 'degrees' of samadhi. Nothing could be more superficial than counting breaths from one to ten in Zazen, counting mantra repetitions with Japa beads, counting Hail Mary's with a rosary. Counting is the problem, not the solution. It sustains the illusion of time. 

Real meditation isn't a business handled by an accountant. Real meditation melts your clock. Each breath takes you home to the beginning. Each breath is the breath of God, breath 'one.' There is no 'two.'