The Power Of Life

If You Leave The Mind In The Now, Things Become Easy

I think that everyone has experienced that feeling of being driven to the wall by something; as though they are being hunted down. You can’t stop thinking about a particular thing and as a result it makes you feel trapped and chokey.

I experienced this feeling once when my work schedule was chock a block and for over a month I worked from nine in the morning to nine-thirty at night.  After two or three days, the thought of another month sitting here day in day out confined to a room crept into my mind and I started to find it hard to breathe. My chest stayed tight even while sleeping. 

That evening I had a strange dream.  I was doing some sweeping in a large garden with a bamboo rake.  I was a young monk in training, and the garden seemed to be inside a temple enclosure. The freshly swept sandy ground showed an ordered pattern, like the scales on a fish.   A Sennin (hermit) appeared, and asked “How many times have you swept the garden?” “Eighty-eight times”, I replied.  The Sennin shook his head as if to say “Not yet”, and left.  The next day after I had swept the temple garden, the Sennin returned again to ask me how many times I had swept it. When I told him, he shook his head again, and left as before.  This continued every day until one day I started to concentrate carefully on every action I made, and became totally absorbed in sweeping the ground. My forehead glinted with large beads of sweat. At that point, the Sennin appeared and asked me the same question as before.  This time my mind only concentrated on each individual sweep. That moment was everything.  Instinctively I replied “Once”.  At that moment, the Sennin, nodding in approval, disappeared and was never to be seen again. 

When I awoke from the dream, I stopped thinking about things in the future. This moment is all that counts. By putting the mind into the moment, it becomes everything. There is no difference between one day and one month. When I was able to think like this, my breathing immediately became very relaxed.

Our minds are always swinging from the past to the future, which is why we experience anxiety and suffering. By entrusting our minds to the present, we can concentrate solely on the action in hand, or on our breathing. Every image we see should be engraved in our minds moment by moment. If we do this we can keep our minds in the present. Success in doing this will, I am certain, give release to any feelings of anxiety, and will allow you to relax.