This morning, I woke up to amazement. I found myself in my own bedroom after spending 8 hours wandering around in my dreams to all sorts of strange places; somehow I still wound up at the exact same place where I fell asleep!
I come downstairs, and Heidi is sitting on the couch, laptop in her lap, just like yesterday. There's this strange continuity of existence that somehow I didn't expect this morning. The possibilities seemed so endless at night, when anything could happen, that it did not seem likely that I would wake up in a world remarkably similar to the one I left.
Furthermore, I realized I am still me (whatever that is)! In a world of impermanence, what explanation is there for being approximately the same person that I was yesterday? Why did I not return as a frog, or an ocean wave?
Part of me is disappointed - of all the people and things I could have been, I am once again constrained to be me. Part of me is comforted - I know what to do in this world, and in this body. I'm used to being me. I will have the same friends and relationships that I had yesterday, and I have the same activities to look forward to or dread.
Most of the time, life seems to move incrementally. Watching the minute hand, I can barely perceive motion. Yet when I am not watching, the hands on the clock can jump suddenly to totally unexpected positions, and I may have to rush out the door.
Can I draw a conclusion from this without cementing my reality into the non-present? Probably not. Conclusions kill. Can I escape my sameness, my continuity? I can always escape into the present moment, and leave behind the apparent reality of my past and future. It seems to be only the present moment that is continually new.
