Hi all,
Erin:
> what if it is too overwhelming to live in the presnt..
> wouldn't you be going toward the present?
How was that Zen mot? Eat when you're hungry, sleep when you're tired... or
something like that. It's five months a small Zen master came to live in my
home. She lives in the present, as she still doesn't know what "time" is. I
guess she's learning, though. A world of pure DQ like the one she's
experiencing must be wonderful, but maybe unbearable, especially when your
brain is capable of sketching high-quality intellectual maps. "Future" is a
special kind of these maps. Of the finest quality. Really, there is only
now. Planning the future is one way of living the present. I've read that
one of the decisive vantage points of early humans was the ability of
planning hunt strategies without the need of being on the hunt scene. Lions
and wolves can't sit around the table and decide when and how attack
gazelles or sheep. Humans do. While smoking peyote, eventually. Or sharing a
red bottle of Chianti. They plan, discuss alternatives. They imagine. From
imagination to arts the step was not huge.
The oldest cave paintings show hunt scenes.
The great chess masters have the ability to imagine five or six moves ahead.
Seven, maybe. More it's impossible. Too many variables. I like chess, but
I'm not that great. I can imagine maybe two moves, or three when I'm in a
particular state of grace. I don't like playing with a computer, I do prefer
a friend. Playing chess is for me a way of knowing. Myself and my friend.
Playing chess with someone more skilled than you can be stimulating. Or
discomforting, depending on your mood, and on how much you feel the
importance of the game. I guess that whether my own life would be at
stake, discomfort would become anguish. My newborn Zen master is never
anguished. She still doesn't know that life is always at stake. Rightly,
because you can't build your future if you are frightened.
Pope John Paul II never forgets repeating: "Don't be afraid!".
Our ancestors invented for us the ability of sketching the near future,
still it's not enough. We can imagine three or four moves, but we would like
to plan thousands of years. Last month I've been to Pisa, Tuscany. The land
of Chianti, by the way. I shuddered in front of the superb cathedral, the
unique sloping tower and the inimitable baptistery. They begun the cathedral
more than one thousand years ago. It took centuries. All them, architects,
workers, political and economic sponsors, artists, priests never had the
chance to see the work done. But what they just imagined is still there,
beautiful. The greatest dreamers are like chess masters: they are seven
moves ahead. Indeed, even one thousand years is nothing if confronted with
the hugeness of time. But that's the best we humans can do, if we live in a
particular state of grace. Here came my shudder: they have been able to
build beauty, and it lasted beyond their life .... but me? What about me?
I'm not an artist. I will be entropically transformed into dust and
forgotten just like the 99.99% of all human beings, therefore? I turned
around. Behind me my little Zen master, smiling. Her eyes, black like mine,
and like my mother's, and like the mother of my mother.... Checkmate,
anguish!
In the movie "Amistad", the black slave explains why it is worthy to live:
"We are the reason our ancestors lived for".
Ciao,
Marco
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