In last week’s blog posting, one wrote about how merely perceiving with (and “as”) separation, causes limitation expressed as illusory ignorance. Such separation negates enlightenment and profound intelligence. The separation that many minds habitually perceive through (and “as”) naturally involves limited space and limited time. Speaking of separation, we can scientifically understand — as Einstein eloquently indicated — that space and time are not fundamentally separate things. Limited space involves limited time.
Interestingly, that may be why when nirvana/spiritual enlightenment occurs (as a blessed visitation), one of the things that happens (while it is occurring) is that one’s visual field (involving depth perception) collapses… probably because even that space (involving perceiving distant things) has little importance to that sacredness that is timeless and beyond limited space. (Please don’t try to mentally collapse your visual depth perception through effort to get something out of it; that would be childish and futile. You can’t “make it happen.”) Unfortunately, we obtusely stick to so many edicts and presumptions that our crude society dishes out to us. We tend to faithfully cling to these limited realms, embracing them without question; it’s much like a turtle mindlessly sticking solely to his little, stagnant pond, while all the while a beautiful, pristine, majestic, large lake exists nearby.
One actually is one’s fears, but when a person feels separate from the fears that he says “he has,” he is manufacturing a fictional, illusory space between the fears and what he (as a thought) claims he is. So, analyzing and trying to subjugate those fears will take time (in relation to the limited space that was fabricated). That space and that time — being of one thing — is limited. A consciousness stuck with such dynamics (or lack of dynamics) is naturally limited. Limitations can be stagnation. There is an intelligence that exists beyond such limitations.
Tom's Nature-up-close Photography and Mindfulness Blog 
Awesome work always my brother! ❤️💯
Much appreciated, M.T.! Take care, in these crazy times. 😉
Your last line says it all and as much as I love turtles your analogy is a poignant one. Thank you, Tom.
Thanks very much, Michele! Too many of us are like those turtles that cling to stagnant ponds (satisfied and content with narrow limitations).
There is lot to grapple with these days Tom and our minds are taxed and weary of it all. I admire the turtle that is fixated on the horizon; we also are fixated on what is on the horizon and beyond. It’s been a difficult weather week … not only the volatile weather, flash flooding, extreme heat that our states are dealing with but the weather woes around the world. The weather is not for sissies sadly.
I feel sorry for the poor creatures of nature who have to endure the extreme heat and polluted weather. Today we were inundated with smoke and fog from the wildfires in Canada. Tomorrow and Saturday are also supposed to be days with serious smoke and residual pollutants. Birds, for example, have sensitive lungs… and they must stay out in all of this dangerous air. As i’ve said many times before, we humans must do better. Be careful and stay mostly indoors for now.
I don’t know how these creatures are surviving this Summer, between the heat and the wildfire smoke. We had air quality advisories for today and tomorrow and likely Sunday as well. Up until yesterday, I had intended to go for a few long walks while it was cooler, Friday through Sunday, but with the air quality advisory, I did not and while I could mask up, I would not want to risk damaging the camera lens to take pictures. It’s not worth it. The Summers of our future are sure nothing to look forward to.
Yes, the summers of our future look rather bleak, air-quality-wise. I feel sorry for young people these days. My, what will their future be like? There are air quality advisories for our Illinois area too, for the next few days. I noticed that the birds (in the morning) are not singing happily as they used to. Sad indeed! A species that ruins the very planet that it inhabits… How insane is that?! And we created a God in our own image! Regardless of the current man-made state of affairs… there is true, wondrous magic in each and every day.
Your words resonate deeply — the moment the boundaries of space and time dissolve, coherence blooms beyond limits. That collapse of visual depth at the cusp of insight feels less like loss and more like a portal opening.
Makes me think of the idea of Stillpoint — that timeless clarity isn’t waiting behind complexity, but emerges when we stop trying to hold too much within our frame.
Thank you for pointing toward that spaciousness, hidden right beside the edges we cling to.