All My Days
Good Morning,
As we move through our lives it is so easy to always think about the future or romanticize the past. The difficult thing for most of us is to live in the present, yet the benefits of learning to do so can be great:
Don't let life slip through your fingers by living in the past or in the future. By living one day at a time you live all days of your life.
Relish the moments of your day and live it to the fullest!
Peace and Love, Jim
posted by The Daily Buddha at 5:47 AM
3 Comments:
it's funny how easy it is to think we are "living in the present" - however, when you really think about it, you are often thinking about the past or future. I know you and I had this conversation once before; about how when you are driving to work - it's hard to not think about what you are going to do once you get to work, or think about what you have to do throughout the day. I often try to 'zone out' while driving (not zone out by not watching where I'm driving!) but trying to keep my mind focused on the area surrounding me. I often look at each person that passes me and think about how each person has their own world around me. I don't really even exist to them (at least in their conciousness, I am only a car in thier way). Is it our society that has made us so isolated in our own worlds? or is it our own conciousness that blocks us from really being "aware" of our surroundings? I'm not saying all people are like this - but it seems to be a general feeling I get when watching others in public.
Ahh, you are beginning to peek behind the curtains of the illusion we call life. What is reality? As you have discovered in your drive to work everyone lives in their own reality or perceptions of reality.
For example: Several people stand in a room circled around a flower in a vase sitting upon a bar stool. Each of us sees the flower, vase and stool from different angles or perspectives, we each see it differently. So the question becomes: Which one of us is seeing the "real" flower, vase and stool? IS there one singular view we can call real?
Yes we can all agree we are in the room and yes we can all agree that we are looking at a flower, vase and stool (that's why we invented words) but beyond that we all see it differently, so again I ask, What is real?
Let's break this down a little more. It is only a flower because we all agreed to call it a "flower". If we do not have these agreements then what is the thing we call a flower?
I hope you are beginning to see how silly this whole illusion of "real" is. We do the same thing with ourselves. We think that "me" is real and we spend so much of our time, lives and energy trying to hold this concept together that we ultimately suffer in some way. This life, this concept of me, this world contains nothing "real". It does contain a bunch of people who have agreed on many things, but does that make it "real" or just an agreement?
Take what you have learned and understand how silly most of the worlds problems become when we see it all this way.
I will leave you with this thought: If their is no "me" then there is no problem or decision to make when considering "the happy box" problem, I do not have to get in or out, because there is no "I".
Peace my friend!
man, I could write a book on this topic now :) This was my favorite discussion with Dr. Day - the whole: "I can walk on the ceiling, so long as i define the ceiling as the floor and the floor as teh ceiling." It's all a matter of definition and what is considered a "univeral truth" rather than "personal truth". I love philosophy :D
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