Stop, pause, breathe and witness the miracle of your
Life!
In everyday living, the business of
earn-a-living, keeps us so much on the edge that, sometimes, we don’t even know
whether we are coming or going. There’s always so much to do. And so little
time. Technology should have made Life easier – to be sure, it has – but we
have complicated it by being addicted to it. Some people have got so addicted
to facebook and Twitter that they are always feverishly typing away statuses
and comments from their phones. Think about it. The first thing most of us do
when we wake up is to reach for our cell-phones.
A quick look at your emails, facebook and
Twitter notifications, WhatsApp messages and SMSes is now a subconscious first action.
Even before you have brushed and freshened up, this is what you do. And the
mind starts pounding away responses to what you have seen and read. By the time
you are at work, you are so pumped up that, you carry that “rushed” frame of
mind all through the day. Even when you are back home for dinner, you are still
looking at your phone even as you eat. The same charade repeats itself day
after day, even on weekends, and often on vacations too.
There may be nothing apparently wrong with this
lifestyle. Except that you are probably missing the miracle in everyday living.
Over time, as age catches up, you realize that you haven’t really lived the
Life that you wanted. You have merely existed, gotten by, by surviving! This is
why perhaps the venerable Russian dramatist Anton Chekov (1860~1904) famously
said: “Any idiot can face a crisis. It’s day-to-day living that wears you out.”
A Zen story comes to mind. When Bankei Yotaku
(1622~1693), the Japanese Zen Master, was teaching at the Ryomon Temple, a
priest, who was jealous of Bankei’s large following, decided to debate with him
to put him down. So, one day, when Bankei was in the middle of his Talk, the
priest arrived and created a commotion. Bankei stopped his lecture and asked
the preist what he wanted. “The founder of our sect,” boasted the priest, “had
such miraculous powers that he held his brush in his hand on one bank of the
river, while his disciple held a paper on the other bank, and yet he would be
able to write the name of God on the paper – through air. Can you do such a
thing?”
Bankei smiled. He replied: “Perhaps your
founder, who is a genius it appears, can perform such a trick. But this is not
how Zen works. My miracle is that when I feel hungry, I eat and when I feel thirsty,
I drink.”
To be alive, to experience this Life that you
and I have been given, is the biggest miracle of them all. It is also the
greatest wealth we can ever have. The truth is that we have it and the tragedy
is that we don’t realize we have it. So, we keep searching for it and in the
process squander it. Remember: your Life
is not going to change, unless you change the way you live!
With every post of your, I am finding that it is very important to read them in detail and full attention;. They are real lessons needed for life. Thank you Sashi for such amazing write ups.
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