Carpe Diem
from 
JoeUser Forums
JoeUser Forums
With palms together,
Good Morning Everyone,
Its a Saturday morning and I am awake at 4:30. In a few minutes I'll drive to the trail-head of the Baylor Canyon Pass trail. I am to do four miles of it this morning and, since I made up for my slothfulness in the mountains by doing four miles yesterday, I am a little tired. I understand doing two hard days back to back is "good" training followed by a rest day. Since Sunday is my main day at Zen Center, its also my rest day.
There is always confusion about this business of living in the moment and planning for the future. We say there is only this moment. We are often taken to mean, we should have no thought to the future nor should we have a goal. This would be a sort of Carpe Diem Zen and it would be incorrect.
Zen requires only that we live fully in the moment we are in, awake to it. If we are planning in that moment, it is planning we are awake to. If we are sitting, it is sitting we are awake to. Of course we have goals. Goals are a sort of structure in our calendar. Yet, we should not be living in future moments, awake to future moments, all of which do not actually yet exist.
So, if we say with the Beatles (I think), 'life is what is happening as we are planning for the future' this is a correct statement, but not a censure of planning. Planning, goal setting, these are present moment activities; just as the tenzo must plan tonight for tomorrow's meal, according to Master Dogen.
Be well.
Good Morning Everyone,
Its a Saturday morning and I am awake at 4:30. In a few minutes I'll drive to the trail-head of the Baylor Canyon Pass trail. I am to do four miles of it this morning and, since I made up for my slothfulness in the mountains by doing four miles yesterday, I am a little tired. I understand doing two hard days back to back is "good" training followed by a rest day. Since Sunday is my main day at Zen Center, its also my rest day.
There is always confusion about this business of living in the moment and planning for the future. We say there is only this moment. We are often taken to mean, we should have no thought to the future nor should we have a goal. This would be a sort of Carpe Diem Zen and it would be incorrect.
Zen requires only that we live fully in the moment we are in, awake to it. If we are planning in that moment, it is planning we are awake to. If we are sitting, it is sitting we are awake to. Of course we have goals. Goals are a sort of structure in our calendar. Yet, we should not be living in future moments, awake to future moments, all of which do not actually yet exist.
So, if we say with the Beatles (I think), 'life is what is happening as we are planning for the future' this is a correct statement, but not a censure of planning. Planning, goal setting, these are present moment activities; just as the tenzo must plan tonight for tomorrow's meal, according to Master Dogen.
Be well.