Meditation – a category that includes taiji – is about looking into time. In particular locating – or even extracting – the present from the lazy flow of time. It would seem we have no choice but to be in the present, but in fact most of us do all we can to avoid its revealing glare. The present moment is red hot – or ice cold – and when I am truly in and of it I contain no past and no future – I am unclothed of them and stand naked, bereft of the possibility of escape or avoidance. This razor's edge requires all the intensity and concentration I can muster to sustain and bear, because the true present is in fact the absolute future opening up before me – a future untainted by the past – the unextrapolatable future – a place and time of novelty and creativity – pure spirit.