Zen Moments I
"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."
- William Blake, Auguries of innocence.
Time is rushing by and sweeping us all away with the ebbing tide. As we grow older the perception that time is moving faster can overwhelm us. To hear that "melancholy roar", as Matthew Arnold put it, can so often lead to the "denial of death" (Ernest Becker). We hope for immortality, and since the dawn of human history this has been the primary generator of all religious belief.
When I lived through my midlife crisis I chose for the ringtone of my phone the popular song by the band Youth Group, "Forever Young." www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQi8wEHMm5Y&t=65s
"Do you really want to live forever, forever young?
But in truth, our desperate attempts to pretend the tide won't go out for us (you know the feeling that we are the exception to the rule), are eventually revealed for the self-denial they really are. The fact is we are all going to die, and some of us sooner than others.
But that's okay, life is not about us! Our dearest loved ones die and the world goes on. And so it will be when our time comes. The important thing is that we actually got to experience those eternal moments when we stopped and listened to the ocean, or gathered exotic shells on a beach of golden sand. For me the joy of life is being able to say I shared a planet with billions of fellow human beings, who despite the vastness of this universe, might well be the only complex form of life there is.
Zen philosophers know that facing the facts of life can be a lifechanging experience when we slow down enough to contemplate what is really before us. So we need to stop and look carefully, and take in the moments that bear true eternity. William Blake is right.
Zen Moments I
"To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour."
- William Blake, Auguries of innocence.
Time is rushing by and sweeping us all away with the ebbing tide. As we grow older the perception that time is moving faster can overwhelm us. To hear that "melancholy roar", as Matthew Arnold put it, can so often lead to the "denial of death" (Ernest Becker). We hope for immortality, and since the dawn of human history this has been the primary generator of all religious belief.
When I lived through my midlife crisis I chose for the ringtone of my phone the popular song by the band Youth Group, "Forever Young." www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQi8wEHMm5Y&t=65s
"Do you really want to live forever, forever young?
But in truth, our desperate attempts to pretend the tide won't go out for us (you know the feeling that we are the exception to the rule), are eventually revealed for the self-denial they really are. The fact is we are all going to die, and some of us sooner than others.
But that's okay, life is not about us! Our dearest loved ones die and the world goes on. And so it will be when our time comes. The important thing is that we actually got to experience those eternal moments when we stopped and listened to the ocean, or gathered exotic shells on a beach of golden sand. For me the joy of life is being able to say I shared a planet with billions of fellow human beings, who despite the vastness of this universe, might well be the only complex form of life there is.
Zen philosophers know that facing the facts of life can be a lifechanging experience when we slow down enough to contemplate what is really before us. So we need to stop and look carefully, and take in the moments that bear true eternity. William Blake is right.