The Art of Zen Living

The days are long, but the years are short.

Over at The Happiness Project, Gretchin is talking about the third splendid truth.  Which I’ve quoted above.  I should also clarify that when I say All Things Mulch, I’m not talking about garden supplies.  Mulch is my male cat, pictured to the left.

Yoda, of course, is the little green jedi guy that chided Luke:

“All his life has he looked away—to the horizon, to the sky, to the future. Never his mind on where he was, on what he was doing….”

Wow.

What is the Present Moment, anyway?  To my mind, it’s the unchanging now.  Time is something that we have invented to help up make sense of the ever changing flux and flow that happens inside the unchanging Present Moment.

I know, right?  Makes my head hurt a little just thinking through that sentence.  Let me put it a different way.  Right now, in the present moment, I am writing this blog post.  Also in the Present Moment the Buddha attained enlightenment.  Also in the Present Moment, Jesus Christ hangs on the cross.  Truman gives the order to drop the first atomic bomb.  The first atomic bomb detonates.  The Spartans defend the pass at Thermopylae.  Babylon falls.  Rome rises.  All happening in the unchanging Present Moment.

So why do we spend so little time there?  Why do we always look away - to the future and to the past?

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