We live at the boundary between the past and future. This boundary is infinitely thin. It seems to move, the way a horizon seems to move as you approach it. But the horizon does not move. You move, and since the horizon exists only as your perception, it exists only relative to your position; it appears to move as well. If you stay still, the horizon also stays still. Its movement or fixed position are not illusions.  They are real, but their real existence is contingent upon your perception.

The chief character of the past is its mechanical fixity. Although our memories may shift, appear, and disappear, what we have done is done, and the results of our past actions will bear fruit in the future.  The chief character of the future is that it is constructed freely and by choice.  The circumstances that arise out of past actions cannot be changed or controlled. But our response to them is completely open. Of course our response will be a result of past habits, but we can change those if we educate ourselves and have the presence of mind and the will to make the change. In this sense we are free to act.

So this present moment is the point of contact between our determined past and our liberated future. It moves when we move.  That is, the present moment feels like it is continually slipping into the past at a rate that is determined by how much we are acting, that is, by the intensity of the karma we are creating. However, like the relative motion of the horizon, when we stop, it stops.

When the motion in the present time stops, we cease to create the karma that perpetuates our hurry and disturbance. The name of this cessation is nirvana, and the aspect of time in the unmoving present is called eternity.

In seated meditation we cultivate this way of settling and experiencing the present. However, this Samadhi – a calm, clear, present mind – is necessary, but not sufficient for, a complete end to suffering.  To achieve that, Samadhi must be applied to a mind conditioned in wisdom.