Coming out of the movie, I realized that I want what the crones have: time for all those long deep breaths, time to watch more closely, time to learn to enjoy what I’ve always been afraid of – the sad and the invisibility; the ease of understanding that life is not about doing. The crones understand this, and it gives them all kinds of time – time to get much less done, time for all the holy moments.
As I have written before, Jacques Lusseyran was a French writer who took part in the Resistance against the German Occupation, and he continued to organize groups against the Nazis even after he was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. His work was all the more striking because he was totally blind from the age of 8, following an accident at school. His experiences give him a certain authority when it comes to reflections on what makes for contentment or unhappiness:
Unhappiness, I saw then, comes to each of us because we think ourselves at the center of the world, because we have the miserable conviction that we alone suffer to the point of unbearable intensity. Unhappiness is always to feel oneself imprisoned in one’s own skin, in one’s own brain.
Jacques Lusseyran.
I have merged, like the bird, with the bright air,
And my thought flies to the place by the bo-tree.
Being, not doing, is my first joy.
Theodore Roethke. American poet
That it will never come again, Is what makes life so sweet. Emily DickensonWhat exactly is Emily Dickenson writing about. She’s writing about just this. This wonderful, clear, bright, blue day. It won’t come again. There will be other, very similar days, no doubt. But this day will not return. And you sitting here reading this, you will not sit down in this same way, with these same thoughts and feelings. None of this will be the same again. Even as you set down this book and leave the room, you’ll not be the person who walked in. This will never come again. This is always the case. That this will never come again is what it actually means to be born again and again. We and indeed the whole world are born repeatedly, over and over, in each new moment…What makes human life – which is inseparable from this moment – so precious, is its fleeting nature.
Steve Hagan, Buddhism is Not what You Think
There is a phrase which is associated with the Japanese tea ceremony – Ichigo ichie – which means something like “one time, one encounter.” . It is a nice motto to take for today. It reminds us to treasure every moment, because each moment and each meeting will happen only once and never recur again. So whether having a simple cup of tea or coffee, or meeting someone we know well, or going a familiar way, let us try to keep the phrase in mind. We will not pass this way again.
In Italy, today – the Monday after Easter Sunday – is known as La Pasquetta (“Little Easter”) or Lunedì dell’Angelo (“The Monday of the Angel”). Ir is a day for relaxing outside, for going for a walk and having a picnic. It probably has it roots in ancient Spring festivals, when people would gather outdoors to celebrate. It was a day when a journey, a walk, or even a drive in the car had to be made. The religious meaning given to it, at least as it was explained to me, was to remember the journey made by Jesus’ two disciples on the road to Emmaus on Easter Day.
These two disciples set out on Sunday for the village of Emmaus, a walk of a few days. As they were going along, Jesus joined them. They did not recognize him. They were replaying the events of the past – the days of the Crucifixion – and were worrying about what was to happen to them. Their concerns and chatter, their fear-driven desire to run away, did not allow them recognize that God was actually walking with them. In this way, they are just like us, caught in worries about the past, or running away or basing our view of the future on fears. Like us, we often fail to recognize the richness of our life lies in the present moment, when all we can experience is right with us. Often, to be fully alive, all we have to do is see what is being offered to us, right in this moment, rather than thinking our joy lies somewhere else, sometime else. It is sad if we are so focused on getting to a destination, we do not notice what is right beside us now.
The present moment
contains past and future.
The secret of transformation,
is in the way we handle this very moment.
Thich Nhat Hahn, Understanding Our Mind
