Westerners can be identified, not only from their shape, colouring, and speech, but also from the fact that they live for the future and are in a hurry to get there. Tony Moore has described our bustle as the disease, the poison of the twentieth century.¹

Bustle

      Our future orientation and freneticism arise from the assumption that life is headed towards a telos, or end point, which is drawing it forward. We are going from somewhere to somewhere. The Judaeo-Christian tradition helped develop and continues to sustain a linear view of history. By contrast, most Eastern cultures conceive of life as an eternal return in which history repeats itself, like the cycles of nature.

      The sheer momentum of "progress", which reinforces the linear view of history, has also contributed to our haste. We are being drawn into the future, like carriages hooked up to an unstoppable locomotive that continues accelerating.

      We are also afraid that, unless we hasten, we will forfeit benefits, or else be unable to reverse our fortunes. Jung, contrasting East and West, suggested that Easterners are not in a hurry because what they can't fit into this life can be accommodated in the next.²

      Our competitiveness also plays a part. Others will win the prize if they try harder or get there first. Our acquisitiveness, based on fear of deprivation, reinforces this orientation.

      Fear of death is a further factor. We imagine that we will escape the Grim Reaper if we keep running. By keeping us pre-occupied, running also distracts us.

      The fear of death, underling our escapism, becomes a fear of life. This is seldom recognised because it masquerades as a love of life. We drown ourselves in life's pleasures to avoid facing the fact that we will one-day die. We are afraid of life because we are [259] afraid of death and we run from both.

      While we are vaguely aware that we are caught up in a denial of death and an avoidance of life, we rarely pause long enough to face our predicament. We power ahead. We are urged on by the knowledge that society rewards those who achieve, those who run the fastest.

Time

      Another reason for our future orientation, and for our haste, is that we are captive to an artificial concept of time. We are mesmerised by chronological time. As Sam Keen suggested, we swear allegiance to chronological time.³

      There is another dimension to time. The Greeks spoke about kairos time, of those occasions when time seems to stand still and we are transfixed by a moment of ecstasy or revelation.

      In Western society there is no present. There is an "instant", but not a present. The present slips through the crack between the past and the future. Anticipated, it becomes a dimension of the future. In being experienced it is relegated to the past. It is not savoured.

      Other cultures, particularly Eastern cultures, have a different way of looking at time. Their philosophies suggest that there is no past or future, only a present. In meditation, past, present and future dissolve into each other. Time is not regarded as a succession of intervals, but as the foundation of ever-present experience. What Westerners consider the passage of time is regarded as an illusion.

      This view of time is supported by the New Physics. At the beginning of this century scientists began to speak about space-time and to argue that time does not exist as a separate entity. It is an artificial construct that helps us manage daily tasks.⁴

      Mystics experience the Eternal Now as the foundational matrix of space-time.

      Zen koans, teasing questions designed to transcend ordinary ways of thinking, help point the way to an exploration of this Eternal Now. Several examples will illustrate the technique: [260]

      Sakyamuni asked his disciples. "How long is a person's life?" One man answered, "Seventy". "Wrong" replied Sakyamuni. Several others suggested alternative possibilities. One said, "Sixty", another, "Fifty". Sakyamuni shook his head.

      One of his disciples then asked the master, "How long is a person's life?" Sakyamuni replied. "Life is but a breath".

      Sakyamuni's answer suggests that we should not become tangled in the artificial sequencing of time. Instead, we should live the moment.⁵

      One-day, while walking through a wilderness, a man encountered a vicious tiger. He ran as fast as he could and soon came to the edge of a cliff. Climbing down a vine, he discovered another tiger at the base of the cliff. To make matters worse, two rats appeared and began to gnaw on the vine. It began to tear. Suddenly, directly in front of him, the man noticed a plump, red strawberry. He paused, oblivious for the moment of his circumstances. He plucked the strawberry and put it in his mouth, savouring the taste.⁶

Consequences

      Because we are captive to the future, we never allow ourselves to enjoy the present. We rarely invest ourselves in what we are doing. We perform tasks perfunctorily. In a hurry to realise future goals, we fail to derive pleasure from adding up a column of figures, from sweeping the path and from washing dishes.

      Furthermore, we rarely derive pleasure from achievements. Delight was sacrificed for an end we find unsatisfying.

Benefits

      If we were able to savour the moment, we would live differently.

      We would also have the leisure to give ourselves to people, to give them our total attention. We would be less materialistic, less driven by the compulsion to consume. We would improve our health. We would be at rest while working. We would eat differently, savouring what passes through our lips. [261]

      Living in the Now would reduce our competitiveness. We would also realise that the things that are really important come to us as gifts. Commonplace activities would take on a new charm.

      We would realise that the universe is pregnant with Presence. We would learn to flow with this Presence. We would be aware of the energies of the Spirit coursing through us. We would be less stressed and have more energy.

But how?

      How do we live In the Now?

      There is no one way.

      One approach is to become better acquainted with our bodies. Our bodies are built for living in the now. We can begin to get in touch with our bodies by paying attention to our breathing. As Sam Keen commented, there is a moment of calm between breaths, a moment that we should learn to savour.⁷

      Exploring the deeper reaches of the self and becoming familiar with its language and rhythms also helps.

      Artistic expression, where energies are called up from the unconscious, is a way forward.⁸

      Listening to the voice of nature, observing its cycles and attending to its harmonies, will facilitate the process.

      Facing our mortality, squarely, may be the circuit breaker that is needed.

      Recognising that character is more important than achievement will help us get our bearings.

      Opening our lives to the Spirit is a critical factor. As Eckhart advised, we need to get out of the way and let God be God in us.⁹

Taming the tiger

      Buddhists emphasise the importance of "Taming the Tiger",¹⁰ by which they mean stilling the mind. In the West, we honour those whose minds can juggle the greatest number of ideas. We crank the mechanism. Eastern philosophy highlights the importance of calming the mind, so that we penetrate the inwardness of things. We value knowledge. They value insight. [262]

      They encourage what they describe as mindfulness, that is, attending to what is immediately before us." Mindfulness, according to Thomas Merton, is being richly aware of what we are doing when we are doing it.¹¹

      A Zen master was once approached by a disciple, who asked: "What is the meaning of Zen?" The master replied: "Confucius did not conceal anything from you and neither do I." The surprised questioner blurted out: "I don't get it". Seeing that the disciple was still perplexed, the master said, "Let us go to the back side of this mountain". While they were on their way, the master asked the disciple: "can you smell the sweet smell of osmanthus?" When the disciple responded that he could, the master said, "See, I'm not hiding anything from you".¹²

Artistic expression

      Music and art can help us experience the present moment. They echo the beauty and pain of the soul, wafting the fragrance of the Eternal Present before our senses.

Here and now

      We do not need to go in search of the Eternal Now, as if it were somewhere distant. This can be a distraction. The eternal is where we stand. It is this present moment. It is not a special essence apart from other essences. It is those essences. It is the meal you are eating. It is the ground you are digging. It is the assignments you are correcting. It is the clothes you are ironing. It is your interchange with your child. Whether you experience the Eternal Now in these situations will depend upon your attentiveness, your mindfulness.

      Martin Buber expressed this same insight from a Jewish, Hasidic perspective, when he argued that the treasure we all seek, to fulfil the potential of our existence, is located where we stand--in what we encounter, in what happens to us, in our responses, in our moments of deep reflection.¹³ [263]

Going down

      The Journey we set out on is not horizontal but vertical, and the direction is down. We need to journey deep into ourselves. This Journey does not close off the world. It opens us to the world in a new way. As a consequence of our trek, we see the world differently, and we wonder why we have not seen it in this light from the beginning, because it all seems so clear.

The beginning and the end

      If we proceed along this path, we will embrace interruptions as inbreakings of the divine. We will discover, looking back, that the end was present at the beginning, only we couldn't see it. When the light of the sun breaks over the horizon, when enlightenment dawns, we will recognise that its rising has been a gift. As T. S. Eliot commented in "Little Gidding", we will complete our exploration when we return to where we began and see this beginning-place in its true light for the first time. ¹⁴ [264]

[LS 259-264]