Today I read a comment about Zen. The writer was saying that being in the present wouldn't work because, if we didn't anticipate the future, we wouldn't have any reason to get up in the morning. I've often heard this objection. But let's examine the assumptions behind it for a moment.
Do we really get up in the morning only because we anticipate the future? What if we had nothing in particular happening that day or in the foreseeable future? Wouldn't we still get up? The body sleeps for seven or eight hours and it is rested. It wants to move. That is why we get up. Only people who are very depressed or sick do not want to get up in the morning.
So why is this idea such a common one? Because the mind wants to imagine that it controls the life. And part of the way it maintains control is by telling this story. The mind wants us to believe that its projects are the only thing that makes life worth living.
Has anyone who has ever woken up to the Eternal Present found that he or she no longer wanted to get up in the morning? The truth is that one wants to get up all the more -- because now life can be experienced first-hand, not just through ideas about it -- now life is more, not less, than the mind imagined before -- infinitely more!
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I love to get comments from readers who want to mutually explore Truth as we at the same time remember that the words are just fingers pointing...