Being Here... Now

There is something to do, but at the same time whatever you are doing is only related to the moment rather than being related to achieving some goal in the future, which brings us back to the practice of meditation. Meditation is not a matter of beginning to set foot on a path; it is realizing that you are already on the path --- fully being in the nowness of this very moment --- now, now, now. You do not actually begin because you have never really left the path.
 


Chogyam Trungpa;
Shunyata,
Cutting Through
Spiritual Materialism, p. 203

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This being in the now means to me that all I have to take care of is what is to be taken care of that is right before me. A boxer goes into the ring with the immediacy of the arena in a very real and practical sense of the now. A chess player of any consequence sees several moves ahead but each move is predicated on the one at hand. The carpenter pays attention to the wood that is being cut in the moment and here I am in the moment… sitting at my desk as I type out words that try to capture my thoughts as they flow. I have to say that it is most important that I pay attention to what I am doing now than it is to envision the end result. On a certain level the one who hones a craft is as much or more of a yogi than some guy that sits on a mountain top honing the contrivances of the mind.
    I am a bit distracted today as we prepare to go to LA to attend Lenore’s funeral services. In times such as these the little glimpse of life that is framed between birth and death becomes more accentuated as a brief candle of light that is snuffed out and returns to eternity. The big questions of, “what is the use” and “why bother” are highlighted by the present moment demanding that if I am ever to care, I must care now... if I am ever to understand, it is to understand now... if I am ever going to practice compassion, I must do so in this very moment.
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