"How do I Tend this Moment?"

I recently read a beautiful interview in the NYTimes* with Jack Kornfield, author and teacher in the vipassana movement in American Theravada Buddhism. His level of acceptance and compassion is palpable even in writing. And he asked the question, in response to the interviewer feeling both good fortune during this current pandemic and also feelings of guilt and fear, “How do I tend this moment?” Jack was encouraging David the interviewer to be present to and acknowledge his current circumstance and all of his feelings, and allow that to be used for the greater understanding of others as an example of being human.

I encourage you to read the article when you can as it’s uplifting and powerful, and I can’t do it full justice here. But for me it speaks to the concept of having a Simultaneous Experience. Sometimes, when we feel two seemingly diametrically opposed emotions, we short-circuit a bit and can even feel a sense of hopelessness, like we cannot grasp onto an answer either way and that can feel very unstable as our minds try to reconcile. But it is only our thinking mind that is trying to work out a problem and resolve. Our hearts are standing by ready to just hold the confusion in it’s steady beat, our souls are seeing the vast landscape of possibility that we cannot see with our limited thinking, and our human thread connected to Spirit can never be broken and isn’t even considering the issue as an issue.