your little Zen master sounds like a cutie...
I don't plan on reading it but I saw a book called
Zen and the Art of Diapers...aaaarrrrggghh
erin
>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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