We all hope for success. We hope for health. We hope for enlightenment. We have all sorts of things we hope for. All hope, of course, is about sizing up the past and projecting it into the future.
However, anyone who sits for any length of time sees that there is no past and no future except in the mind. There is nothing but self, and self is always here, present. It’s not hidden. We are racing around like mad trying to find something called self, this wonderful hidden self. Where is it hidden? We hope for something that’s going to take care of this little self because we do not realize that already we are self.
Charlotte Joko Beck, Everyday Zen
I really enjoyed this. This reminded me of a saying that a mentor of mine used to say, “Stop looking in the past, or into the future. Stop looking for yourself in others, in the divine, or in your work. Right now is all there is, the past is only a memory, the future only a dream, and you reside in the present moment, uniquely you, but interconnected with all”.