WHERE DOES ALL THE TIME GO?

Just when I thought I'd have time on my hands... it runs through my fingers like water. (Or, as that old idiom has it, sand. The sands of time. From the hourglass, I suppose).

We are all embarked on this involuntary retreat, thanks to the pernicious virus that is threatening not only human lives but every personal and social structure we have built to organize them. And like the voluntary retreats I have joined from time to time, it is proving to have some surprising effects on the workings of the mind--some of them, as usual, as unwelcome as they are annoyingly beneficial.

My perception of time is one example. Yesterday was far from the restful expanse of undisturbed time I had expected. From morning to late afternoon, I felt the crush of time bearing down on me, from one unexpected activity or event to the next--and not a moment, it seemed, to stop to take a breath. Instead of reverting to what I have learned from my meditation practice--to take a step back, breathe in, breathe out, and simply observe the phenomena as they occur--I allowed myself to get engaged in them. I fretted. Got angry and upset. Started worrying about time being "wasted." Wished for "more time" to "get things done." And wished the day over so that I could finally relax.

I'm working to observe my wants and not-wants in my meditation this week--my likes and dislikes, as well as my don't cares. My attractions, aversions, and indifferences. Plenty of opportunity yesterday. And much of it not put to advantage, because my mind was swept up in the passage of time.