Dear Brothers and Sisters,
You have heard about living here and now – real living means living right here at this minute. The past, even only five minutes ago, is a memory, and the future is only an imagined image. The past and the future are not real. Real living is living here and now.
That is Zen. Focus on here and now. Focus on what you are doing here and now.
Read this Zen story in the series 101 Zen Stories.
Zen students are with their masters at least two years before they presume to teach others. Nan-in was visited by Tenno, who, having passed his apprenticeship, had become a teacher. The day happened to be rainy, so Tenno wore wooden clogs and carried an umbrella. After greeting him Nan-in remarked: “I suppose you left your wooden clogs in the vestibule. I want to know if your umbrella is on the right or left side of the clogs.”
Tenno, confused, had no instant answer. He realized that he was unable to carry his Zen every minute. He became Nan-in’s pupil, and he studied six more years to accomplish his every-minute Zen.
Jesus also said, “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.” (Matthew 6:34).
Your life is made up of millions of minutes. You do well for your life, by doing well every minute here and now. We don’t need to be Einstein to understand this simple truth.
But now, here is something interesting: If we reverse the order of words and say, “Live now and here,” then “now and here” = nowhere.
What does that mean – living here and now = living nowhere?
I figure the Diamond Sutra says it all:
All conditioned dharmas
Are like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows,
Like dew drops and a lightning flash:
Contemplate them thus.
Tất cả pháp hữu vi,
Như mộng, huyễn, bọt, bóng,
Như sương cũng như điện,
Nên khởi quán như thế.
This life is like dreams, illusions, bubbles, shadows. Living here and now is also living nowhere, because we only appear as a lightning flash, as a tiny wave, appearing only in one minute, on the surface of the ocean, and then disappearing back into the ocean. Our life is only a flashing manifestation of the ultimate Truth of all things, called Void (Không).
This is not much different from the idea that human is from God as a manifestation of God and when a person dies s/he goes back into God.
Something to ponder.
With compassion,
Hoành
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