Hello. I haven’t posted lately ‘cos I’ve been pretty busy with stuff you might well hear about at some point. But today as I was swimming laps – following the advice of seemingly all my friends to do resistance training to ward off decrepitude – I was contemplating subtle impermanence. It was fascinating to me, so I thought I’d share my ten findings:
1. While swimming, we are only ever swimming in the present moment. We are not swimming in the past or swimming in the future. That goes for everything.
2. Moment by moment we slice through the water, each stroke brand new and never to be repeated. There is no point in holding on to the past for it is being erased by the moment. Put another way, the past has gone so there’s no point trying to relive it.
3. We always go forwards. We can never go backwards. Even if I turn around mid-lane and swim back the way I came, I would still be going forwards. The way I came from no longer exists.
4. Each stroke 100% replaces the one just before it. If it didn’t, there’d actually be multiple strokes co-existing. As demonstrated by this slo-mo painting that I just photographed in my favorite coffee shop, SloHi, there’d be three hawks diving, not just one. The first hawk has to go out of existence for the second hawk to arise. Swimming only exists and functions in dependence upon this momentary change or transformation; and this goes for all functioning things; nothing stays the same for even a moment. From this perspective, even the most ancient rocks in the world are barely a moment old. So we may as well stop trying to hold on, and go with the flow instead. 
5. The future is only potential – the pool lane stretches out in front of me, and perhaps I will swim in it, but all that exists is the swimming in the present moment. If I get cramp or something, I will not swim the rest of that lane. Of course we have to plan stuff, but there’s no point in getting attached to or dreading inherently existent future events because there aren’t any.
6. The lane is not separate from, but is part of, the water I am swimming through in this very moment, even as it appears to stretch out on its own both behind and before me. This is like the lane of life. Past and future things do not exist. There are futures of things and pasts of things – or put another way every thing has a past and a future – but there are only ever present things. For example, if you dream you meet someone, that person has a history (born in Croydon) and a future (gonna die one day); yet we are projecting them only moment by moment. If we contemplate this in our heart, we come to live in the present and stop wasting so much of our time regretting a real past or worrying about a real future.
7. The present moment is all there is, but where and what is that moment? Stroke #1 has to go out of existence for stroke #2 to arise – but we cannot pin down the exact crossover point between one stroke and the next, it is merely imputed by thought. Meaning that even the present moment is merely imputed; we cannot find it existing from its own side.
8. Past, present, and future are all merely imputed, so we can change everything by changing our imputations or thoughts. In fact, given that there are only pasts of things and futures of things, we only have to change the present thing to change its past and future. This is exceedingly helpful not just for healing the past, but for becoming a Buddha, as I explain here: Once a Buddha, always a Buddha. Also, it means that if we take care of the present moment, the future will take care of itself.
A story I just ten minutes ago illustrates how changing the present changes the past, so I am coming back here to add it. For 50 years, a friend’s mother has lived in dread of Thanksgiving because although her daughter, my friend E, was born on that day, it was the same exact day that her own beloved mother died. E has been praying for her mother to not loathe Thanksgiving so much, and today, the eve of E’s 50th Birthday, her prayers were answered. Her mother called her this morning to explain that she had awoken with a heart full of happiness because that God had revealed to her that E had been born on that day not in order to replace her mother, but in fact as a very precious gift in her own right. And, E’s mother added, all her bad memories of Thanksgivings past have now completely changed into good ones.
9. When we manage to use our wisdom and determination to stay present, as I explain more here, everything feels more timeless, spacious, and effortless. From my own prior swimming experience I can say that this feels very different to looking ahead to one’s Flat White & Bagel after the swim – the laps crawling by – or dreading all the packing I have been (and indeed still am) postponing.
10. Just being mindful of the present moment – feeling the wind on your cheek or the water on your feet – is very relaxing. But, even more meaningfully, if we can stay in the moment we can keep our mind on positive objects, such as renunciation, love, selflessness, compassion, faith, self-generation (if we have Tantric empowerments), and so on. This way we are not only developing feelings of joy and bliss right now, but also sowing the karmic potentials for more happiness and continued spiritual development down the future lanes of life.
This list doesn’t just apply to swimming, in case you thought it did. Whatever you’re doing right now – walking, working, chatting, eating, scrolling, etc – I wager it shares the equivalent ten points.
Yesterday I was asking a group of people what percentage of time and energy they spent living in the past or the future as opposed to the present moment. The average reply was 90%, which is the usual average reply. So instead of being present and enjoying what it is we are doing, such as swimming, we spend all this time in nostalgia for a past that has completely gone or worrying/fantasizing about a non-existent future. We are actually depriving ourselves of happiness, “Oh I preferred the swim I had in that other pool” (now all gone) or postponing it to an ever-receding horizon, “I can’t wait to swim in the ocean next summer”. Instead, we need to learn to enjoy the fullness of the present moment.
One of them asked me, “When I leave work after a busy day, I can’t help but get excited about picking up my two-year-old. How can I enjoy the present moment while doing that?” I replied that there was no need to defer the happiness to when she was actually holding the toddler in her arms, feeling a gap or a yearning in the half hour between now and then. Instead, she can love him, wish him well, and feel happy about him right now, without the attachment to some future scenario. She liked that, so I thought I’d share it.
It also occurred to me that the answer this group gave, 90%, was the same answer I usually get to the question posed in this article: Control your thoughts or they’ll control you:
What percentage of your thoughts do you not want to think but can’t help thinking?
Surely this is no coincidence?! It only shows correlation, not causation, but I can’t help thinking that these two answers are related. Our unpeaceful, uncontrolled thoughts or delusions constantly range over the past and the future, whereas our peaceful, virtuous minds are more present, as I try to explain here: What is there to grasp at?
Over to you, care to add anything? Is there something you do that helps you feel present and centered?
If you like this subject and want to read ten more articles about it 😂, check this out: Going with the flow.
17 Comments
A while ago, you posted https://kadampalife.org/new-kadampa-tradition-buddhism-in-society/
A reply to your suggestion. “If you believe that Buddhism is about engagement, not escapism, and if you are trying to use its ideas to actively change the society and/or world we are in, please consider contributing an article on how you are doing this.”
_____________
On this Thanksgiving day, 2025, thank you for your call to action to benefit society with our loving kindness. Indeed, holy action transforms all of us when we mitigate societal suffering with the gentle powers of Buddha’s teachings and our inspired brave resolve.
About ten years following my spontaneous transcensions beginning at the age of fourteen arising from embracing nature’s fullness and abandoning preconceptions and expectations, I discovered Buddha’s explanatory vocabulary for my otherworldly, conceptionless experiences, e.g., pristine awareness of Emptiness and Impermanence, the meaning of conditional existence, the Four Noble Truths and Noble Eightfold Path, insight meditation, acknowledging the encumbrances and delusions of ego, and liberating our inner buddha of compassion. My classes, retreats, mentors, pervasive empathy, and studies of hundreds of canonical texts and commentaries bolstered with countless insight meditations helped guide my journey. My teachers, including you, contributed to my primal calling to help others and forego self-centeredness.
With ever-present wonder, I was introduced to Buddhism by a professor half way through medical school, before which I found in 1971 that meditation produced significant changes in my EEG, the possibility yet known at the time. This finding ignited my lifelong spiritual and medical explorations of mind. I later entered diverse academic and secular careers to cultivate tools to mitigate corporate and government malfeasance, undue causative agents of mass suffering. Predictably, my efforts met substantial resistance and threats from vested interests, i.e., maras. But I was not the subject; helping and vindicating others was. And personal sacrifice and steep barriers would not be deterrents.
Standing alone and as expert witness before government agencies and in litigation for millions of us – victims and families – pleading for help, I came to the aid of soldiers harmed by illicit drug experiments and pesticide practices,* patients harmed by knowingly unsafe, ineffective drugs, patients suffering from the brain and cardiac damage of diet pills, PTSD patients treated as psychosomatic freeloaders, patients with fibromyalgia and multiple chemical sensitivity, and the environment devastatingly harmed by known toxins. Much of this effort was widely reported by the media. 60 Minutes and BBC, for example, each presented my unique role to help Gulf War veterans forced to use an unsafe drug, about which I published twelve years before the war its futility and its physiological and anatomical destruction of crucial nerve synapses. (* These words of an anguishing father just before my testimony always remind me of humility. “May I shake you hand? His mother will be so very comforted when I tell her I met you. You are the only one giving us hope, thank you. He is my son, Major Michael Donnelly. He just testified.” Major Donnelly had suffered from service-related amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, ALS. Barely able to speak and confined to a wheel chair, he was being denied medical care until my congressional testimony and analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1997.)
In contrast, based on a vision of sorts, I created the programs developing aspirin’s and dietary fiber’s benefits to reduce stroke and heart attack risk. I established the physiology of neurotropism and dramatically intensified the use of computers in neuroscience research. I toured the US as an asthma advocate for self-management skills. I worked with patients scared of flying and provided exciting aerobatics rides for many severely disabled.
These and other karmic missions were enabled by the profoundest efficacy of what I call Active Compassion and core tenets of Buddha’s dispensation. One person can help millions, though one is sufficient. Moreover, joy and connectedness bloom from helping others.
As you wrote, “Modern Buddhism is surely not about escapism; it cannot be about navel-gazing…In general, in the West, there’s a tendency to market an extraordinarily transcendent process, meditation, only as a solution for stress. Meditating to bring out our innate compassion and deep insight can sometimes get lost in translation…People need to know how to become happy through love. Not much else seems to be making us happy these days. Not politics as usual, anyway. The silver lining of this, though, may be that more people are starting to explore other more spiritual ways to solve problems. Loving-kindness is arguably the most important example we can show in our troubled world…Can we really ignore the suffering and inhumanity, and should we remain silent? What would a Bodhisattva do? What would Buddha do?…Mindfulness is a way of living, not a substitute for taking action.”
Take a breath, engage. Buddha did. By doing so ourselves, we assure perpetual thanks and giving.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I read it with huge interest and hope a lot of others get to read it too.
I am a long distance runner (currently sidelined by knee issues, but that’s Samsara for you…) and find this very relatable.
One thing I try and remember to do when running is have ‘Mantra miles’ – After easing myself in for a mile or so I will then pick a mantra and internally chant it for the next mile. Then pick another one, leaving then last mile or so for a cool down and to absorb things. I have found this very helpful in making my exercise meaningful rather than just another mundane thing I need to do for self care! 🙂
That’s really cool, thank you for sharing it, i’ll try it when swimming.
I’m on my way to go swim and lift weights (another necessity at my older age) this morning when I see your article- amazing!! I’ve been so looking forward to your next piece- and here it is about swimming (somewhat)! Thank you so much!! I will contemplate this as I swim, lift weights, and do everything else. Your articles are such an inspiration for me. And while I’m waiting for a new one, I love to go back and reread as many previous ones as I can. What a treasure!
Thank you so much for saying so and for reading! 🙂
Enjoy your swim!!!
That’s for this wonderful article. A few days ago I was contemplating ‘Living In The Moment’ not because I am able to live in the moment but because I am increasingly aware of how important this is. My response to these contemplations is through poetry so here is my poem….
THIS MOMENT
I must be
utterly
completely
content
with this moment
with no subtle
imperceptible
resistance
or denial
as the moment
manifests
for me
Any niggling wish
for something other
is useless
inane
utterly insane
My moment begs
nay demands embrace
like a lover
and will not tolerate
anything other than
holy
hedonistic union
This moment is me
noone else
It demands
complete
commitment
like
a blushing bride
on the day
the solemn vow is made
with
unwavering blessed
acceptance
of foreverness
I must
cling
tightly
to the knife edge
as it slices through
to eternity
Sean Hunt
fine commentary. a third of the content of my books is written in the pool.
Which books do you write?
indeed, inspirational swimming serves many fruitful lessons and ways we can sculpt our movement and medium. during my swim today, i was reminded about our many shared appreciations while others led us to divergent paths.
Such a great example of transforming exercise into Dharma! Just like Ven Geshe-la’s example of exercising his heart every day to live a long life 🙏
Thank you! Yes, Ven Geshe-la always showed the example of staying physically healthy and eating well. Precious human life and all that.
I like this explanation of subtle impermanence Geshe la gives in Ocean Of Nectar.
At the time of the seed, the sprout is being produced;but,since it is still approaching production,the entity of the sprout has not yet arisen and so it does not exist.At that time the seed is ceasing and,although it is still existent,it is said to be approaching cessation.Thus,while the seed exists the sprout does not,and when the sprout exists the seed has ceased.
OON p.193
I enjoyed the swimming philosophy very much indeed. The philosophers the only part of the swimming I can do
It’s the best part 🙂
Wow! Thank you for this important reflection. It helps me a lot and gives insight in the daily practice of everything.
Really glad it’s helpful!