The lighthouse illuminates in a single beam of light. The monk rakes the sand in the garden in front of him. We try to keep our minds focused on the moment in hand, on the next breath in practice. We do not have to live the whole of the future now, just this moment, this breath.

Its vision sweeps its one path
like an aged monk raking a garden,
his question long ago answered or moved on.
Far off, night-grazing horses,
breath scented with oatgrass and fennel,
step through it, disappear, step through it, disappear

Jane Hirshfield, Lighthouse