Life is right now (pt. 1)

“Do not cling to the past which has already gone or the future which has not come. Life is not the future but this very moment.”

Part one of a sermon by Beopjeong Sunim (법정스님)
Transcribed and translated by me
Originally recorded September 27th, 2003 (link)


We all know the motto of the Olympics right? All the athletes know it: “Higher, faster, further.” This is the motto of the Olympics. “Higher, faster, further.” Every time I hear these words, I feel a deep sense of disgust and resistance. The favorite motto of modern science has also always been speed. Fast, faster, and then even faster. And so, they developed the supersonic plane, the Concorde. It was a joint effort between France and the UK, and for a time it was crossing back and forth across the Atlantic. And what happened to this supersonic plane? In pursuit of fast, faster, and then even faster, the first supersonic plane which was even faster than sound eventually exploded mid air. This is one of the incidents which symbolize the consequences of chasing speed. While we need a certain degree of speed to live life, excessive speed is not beneficial, it is harmful.

Let us consider for a moment: for what purpose must we go fast, faster, and then still faster? To surpass others, perhaps. But are we happier once we have done so?… This spirit of competition is very inhumane. It is driven by a cruel selfishness. For a while, it was a common motto in business that even the best don't survive. But that wasn't true. First place, third place, they all survived. First place, now that is unhappiness. There is nowhere higher to go. Becoming the best, being first, that is not rewarding. Rather, where should we be trying to go? Ultimately, it is our own selves that we should be heading towards. Even if we run faster and faster, jump higher and further, we are nonetheless left in the same place. We return to ourselves.

When driving, even I often find myself already thinking of the destination during the trip. By only focusing on the result, I'm neglecting the process. The thought that I must arrive by some set time makes me neglect the process of driving. This is why car accidents happen… We must be able to enjoy the process. We are imprisoned within the thought that we need to reach a certain place by a certain time, and we fail to enjoy the scenery on the way. But life is not the future, it is now. We are living right here, right now. We need to know how to live this 'now.' But instead, we are focused on a past that's already gone, or a future that hasn't even come, and we cannot live in this present. We are unhappy because we fixate on the past, regretting and pitying our misfortunes. If we do that, there is no present.

Just like fruit, all the affairs in our life need time to ripen. People who live fast and busily, like most modern people, and especially young people, don't know how to relax and wait patiently. They try to take care of everything that arises immediately. And they are selfish. These are the downsides of our commercial and information society. We're stuck in a cramped space just staring at computer screens. Of course we cannot help but become self-centered. We don't think about the situation of others. We only have one or two children, and we're quick to answer to their every demand. Because of that, they grow up to be impatient. This impatience is also one of the reasons why the divorce rate is so high. We don't know how to be patient with our spouses. In an agrarian society, you have to know how to be patient and wait. That was the only way you could harvest the fruits of your labor. For the seed to sprout, bloom into a flower and produce fruit, you need the cycle of all four seasons. You need to know to have patience and wait. But in a commerce and information driven society, you are always fighting against time. That is why we don't know how to wait. And because we cannot wait, there is no time for longing to well up inside us. And what is longing?... Longing is the fragrance of humanity. There is that famous poem which describes it:

A flower resembling my older sister
who now stands before a mirror,
having returned from the distant byroads of youth,
of heartwrenching longing and regret.

(excerpt from the poem Beside A Chrysanthemum by Seo Jeong-ju)

Modern people do not know true longing and grief. They have no leisure for longing and grief to dwell within them, because they are obsessed with solving all their problems immediately. Because they try to pick and eat the fruit far before it ripens.

The square computer screen has no human fragrance. Contact through this virtual world offers convenience, but there is no fragrance of humanity. Only through contact with reality does the fragrance of humanity begin to emerge. Whatever it is, never hurry to solve it in an instant, immediately. For a human being to mature into a human being, time is required. As I said earlier, for a seed, planted in the ground to bloom into a flower which finally bears fruit, the whole cycle of four seasons is required. In this, both patience and longing come together. People who really know how to live prefer loving caresses over an immediate embrace. They don't run in a straight line towards their goals but choose the winding, scenic route. Civilization is built on straight lines, but nature prefers curves. A straight line has no leisure, it is unnatural. Curved lines are comforting.

Imagine if we knew our entire future, whether that's 60, 70, or 80 years to come. How would you feel? We wouldn't be able to live. We would be overwhelmed with boredom and anxiety. It's because we don't know the future, that we can start new beginnings, that we can create new things. It is because we don't know that we can, with patience, enjoy this life. Imagine if you knew everything that would happen with absolute certainty. That would be torturous.

Curved lines bring balance and harmony. There is no balance or harmony in straight lines. We must understand this strange beauty of curved lines. It is where the secret to life lies… Do not be upset when things don't go the way you wanted; each of those happenings are meaningful in their own way. If everything worked out as you wished, life would become easy. It would become convenient. You would become unable to understand others.

We as moderns must relearn the relaxed, leisurely, and optimistic lifestyle of our ancestors. The lifestyle of our ancestors wasn't at all worse. They lived with wisdom. They lived in compliance with nature, not overextending themselves or disrupting the harmony. Sometimes, they would move slowly. They would rest along the road, stopping at inns to have a drink. And, they would be able to get lost and wander. We need these kinds of life skills. We need the ability to move slowly. It is the difference we feel when we go from driving on an endless highway and then switching to a local road. We have more leisure to look outside at the scenery, and to stop and rest along the way. And we could get lost and wander about. These are skills that we need to live properly. Through these life skills, we gain a greater understanding of ourselves, as well as come to understand and accept others. We create a world where we live together with our neighbors.

How we accept the circumstances that are given to us determines the quality of the life we live. The person who hurries against time is the person who goes towards death. Think about rush hour traffic when everyone tries to get ahead, not yielding to anyone else. Imagine if that road was leading to the crematory or the graveyard, if it was a highway to death. Who would try to be first? We would instead all be trying to lag behind. The person who knows how to enjoy taking their time is the person who walks upon the field of the soul. The person who struggles against time races towards death.

Whatever we endeavor to do, we must not become a slave to what we are doing. We must understand the task as one of the many episodes in our lives and enjoy the process. When misfortune finds you, do not be upset. It is through misfortune that we gain the opportunity to reflect on our lives, and consider whether we have caused misfortune to others. We need to be able to look back and reflect on this. We need to be able to reflect on the whole context of that experience because every experience is meaningful in its own way. In this way we are able to enjoy life. It is when we think, “Why do these things only happen to me?”, and get upset about it that we become unhappy. Instead, we should think, “Good, this must be meaningful somehow. What could it mean?” And through that we overcome adversity and open our eyes to new perspectives.

We must think of everything that happens to us as one of life's many episodes. In that way, we become free from life's many tasks and tribulations even as we undergo them.

In the Avataṃsaka Sūtra we are taught to “live playfully” (遊戱三昧). When kids play with sand, they get so absorbed in what they are building that they forget that time is passing, they forget where their mom is, what's going on at home, because they are enjoying the process so much. They become immersed in it. That is what it means to “live playfully.” When we as adults go about our lives, we should live with the same attitude. From the Diamond Sutra, “Don't cling to anything but give your heart fully to everything” (應無所住 而生其心). It is said that the 6th Patriarch Huineng achieved enlightenment upon hearing this line. It means that we should not get tied up in anything and live freely. It doesn't mean we shouldn't try to do anything, but it means that we should become free from what we are doing as we are doing it. When we get caught up in what we're doing, we cannot enjoy it. We need to be able to embrace life's happenings and become free from them in the process.