Align with Time

Noticing Repeating Numbers

Sometimes, you notice the clock or the calendar date has repeating numbers: That is a great time to take a deep breath and clear your mind for a one-minute meditation. Photo of a digital clock showing the time of 11:11 by Elnaz Asadi at Unsplash.

Have you ever noticed the clock on your device or out in the world when the numbers repeat? Of course, this happens throughout the day every day. What may not happen every day is the conscious awareness of the exact time this happens. But when you do this, you are witnessing how the pattern repeats in the cycle we call the day.

Awareness of time is an art. In Western philosophy, time flies like an arrow, and there is no going back. In Eastern philosophies, time is cyclical and an interconnected reality. To the Daoists, for example, time is cosmological, calendrical, and even the body features temporal rhythms. Which clock or cycle do you see and experience at any given time?

Time seems to flow, fast or slow, and it seems to stop during heightened sensory and conscious moments. I encourage thinking and experiencing time as an opportunity for self-cultivation and transcendence rather than seeing time as being something to get through or something to fill to the brim.

Start by noticing it. When you align with time and notice time and how it feels in the moment, it can be energizing and activating. It is a moment to be in the Great Mystery and uncertainty of how life moves with total courage.

Moments of alignment are auspicious. Seeing order in ordinary life is like seeing beauty in the unexpected. Witnessing the alignment can be energizing. Whenever the numbers repeat on the clock or calendar, I treat it as a time to take a deep breath, pause, and just be still and present until the clock changes. That single minute can be a long time. Truly, it is a one-minute meditation.

There is an affirmation that goes with this: "I accept this activation!"

The amazing thing is that there are multiple opportunities throughout an ordinary day to do this if we but notice. Sometimes, the numbers may just seem to align at unexpected moments that seem to correspond to certain thoughts about a person or event. I have noticed that when I am about to send a text message or when I am about to venture into the world, the clock can “speak” to me this way. Noticing the alignments can be a way to look for order and harmony in the environment and also within. When you deliberately pause and practice even in a small way like this, you are building strength to direct the mind amid distractions. Building your resolve like this can be that little spark that helps you align with things like Hope, Truth, and Beauty. So then you live life in the minutes and seconds. The hours, days, weeks, months and years will take care of themselves.