I lost my coin yesterday. I was shooting a music video for my guitar cover of the song "Floated By" by Peter Cat Recording Co. The song is about time "floating by". So I used a dollar coin as a motif for time. This dollar coin was one of eight I bought two years ago when I was a hardcore aspiring magician. The other seven have been misplaced. This coin was my last one.

So I was getting footage of myself with this coin. The premise was that the coin would begin in my hands and then disappear. Sort of like how time appears to be something tangible, something right in front of us, but doesn't really exist at all, when you really look at it, time is empty. Or something. I don't know.

But then, I ended up actually losing my coin. Which is so unbelievable because I was pretending to lose the coin in the music video. Simulation becomes reality. One moment it was in my hands and the next it was gone. I spent like thirty minutes searching everywhere around me: the grass, the bench I was seated on, my backpack. I triple checked. I hate losing things, it makes me feel like a neglectful toddler.

Finally, I gave up. I was already overthinking and feeling anxious as explained in the mind straw from yesterday. So it wasn't a good combination.

I was beating myself up on the T when I randomly reached into my right pocket and found the coin. It was in this small pocket within my pocket. I was overcome with relief. And trying to analyze the situation to derive meaning from it, trying to make it poetic. I think it is actually pretty poetic: I searched and searched and it was with me all along. I think that's true for the search my mind is on perpetually. The search for rest, the search for presence: that which I am searching for is already within me.

Another thing: today on the T I've come to a few insights about my struggle with overthinking meditation and presence:

Presence is a sense of listening and understanding of the moment without aiming to comprehend it, divide it, conquer it. It is not an intellectual exercise. It is a sensitivity to living which is understanding. Understanding that all that happens is a part of this: a part of me: which is a part of everything. Doubt is the mindkiller. Doubt is a resistance to this moment, it is a clinging to the idea of perfection. Understanding, which is again not an intellectual process, is the antidote to doubt. And understanding has no protocol or map. There is no language that can bring you understanding. The proper thought and action can put you in a position where understanding is more easily accessed, but it itself is not the understanding.

Also... I had this idea about time. Usually I conceive of time as being linear. From a=>b. But sometimes, time appears to be vertically oriented. In that it feels like a pool that you sink into. I'm not sure how to explain this. But it feels as though time is depth. I'll have to think about this more another time.

~pavan