At each moment, the universe expresses itself from absolute emptiness. This moment is not even discrete but in constant motion. Where should experience be caught in this context? Is it not clearly delusion to pick amongst this more general flow for objects of desire, for memories to cling to, ambitions to chase?

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

He who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity's sunrise.

Blake

For those lost or in pain, freedom from loss and pain is not distant but present in this constant emergence.

'Before the rain stops, we can hear a bird.

Even under the heavy snow, we see snowdrops and some new growth.'

The state that is content in the present is the easiest to discard as we try to avoid unpleasantness and pursue delights. But even in delusion, the truth of our lives is always unfolding.

Dogen writes: 'Flowers fall even if we love them; weeds grow even if we hate them.'

Suzuki wrote:

'To realise pure mind in delusion is practise. If you try to expel the delusion it will persist the more. Just say 'Oh, this is just delusion and do not be bothered by it.''

Imagining enlightenment as some blissful state is just delusion. There is only one moment in which we can make a decision that changes the world. If half of our thinking brain is already imagining a blissful future or regretting or congratulating ourselves on the past, we cannot be truly responsive to the shifting iridescent mosaic of our experience which is only here.

While we are always truly alive, we are busy preventing ourselves from living our real life. We are so busy doing wrong we cannot begin to see rightness dwelling constantly before us.

But doing this blossoming in each instant and wobbling along in harmony with our world is the best we can do. Sometimes it's plain sailing and sometimes like rounding the horn but always just what it is.