Hi,
The next time you hear that Zen is about "Living in the Moment", remember this incredible life story. The expression "Living in the Moment" is a kind of Zen cliche, too easily bandied about without folks really knowing what it means. If you truly lived only "in the moment" with no thought of past or future, you would be much like this poor man who was barely able to function in life. You would stumble into walls, forget where you were going.
We can not only live in the present, but need to learn from the past and plan for the future ... otherwise we would just keep repeating the same mistakes again and again, would not remember where we parked the car, and could not even go shopping for tomorrow's supper or remember to get the baby out of the bath!
Human beings need to learn from the past, plan for the future. So, when Zen folks talk about "being in the moment", a better meaning is that we learn to embrace this present moment, and our lives as they are now, without any thought that this moment should be some other way other than it is. We learn to drop excess thoughts and regrets about the past, and overly fixating on "what was" ... even as we learn from the past. We learn to let the future be and take care of itself, and to drop excess worry about the future ... even as we plan for a better future and take care of what needs taking care. We learn to "just be here" when we want to be ... playing with our children, appreciating a mountain scene, at home or work ... without always having our head lost somewhere else (though sometimes we must have our heads somewhere else and be occupied with thoughts of past and future).
That is "being in the moment". This is what we learn from studying the great Zen and Buddhist teachers of the past, while living right this moment and preparing for tomorrow.
Gassho, Jundo
The next time you hear that Zen is about "Living in the Moment", remember this incredible life story. The expression "Living in the Moment" is a kind of Zen cliche, too easily bandied about without folks really knowing what it means. If you truly lived only "in the moment" with no thought of past or future, you would be much like this poor man who was barely able to function in life. You would stumble into walls, forget where you were going.
We can not only live in the present, but need to learn from the past and plan for the future ... otherwise we would just keep repeating the same mistakes again and again, would not remember where we parked the car, and could not even go shopping for tomorrow's supper or remember to get the baby out of the bath!
Human beings need to learn from the past, plan for the future. So, when Zen folks talk about "being in the moment", a better meaning is that we learn to embrace this present moment, and our lives as they are now, without any thought that this moment should be some other way other than it is. We learn to drop excess thoughts and regrets about the past, and overly fixating on "what was" ... even as we learn from the past. We learn to let the future be and take care of itself, and to drop excess worry about the future ... even as we plan for a better future and take care of what needs taking care. We learn to "just be here" when we want to be ... playing with our children, appreciating a mountain scene, at home or work ... without always having our head lost somewhere else (though sometimes we must have our heads somewhere else and be occupied with thoughts of past and future).
That is "being in the moment". This is what we learn from studying the great Zen and Buddhist teachers of the past, while living right this moment and preparing for tomorrow.
Gassho, Jundo
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H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82
By BENEDICT CAREY
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05 ... nted=print
He knew his name. That much he could remember.
He knew that his father’s family came from Thibodaux, La., and his mother was from Ireland, and he knew about the 1929 stock market crash and World War II and life in the 1940s.
But he could remember almost nothing after that.
In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.
For the next 55 years, each time he met a friend, each time he ate a meal, each time he walked in the woods, it was as if for the first time.
And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science. As a participant in hundreds of studies, he helped scientists understand the biology of learning, memory and physical dexterity, as well as the fragile nature of human identity.
On Tuesday evening at 5:05, Henry Gustav Molaison — known worldwide only as H. M., to protect his privacy — died of respiratory failure at a nursing home in Windsor Locks, Conn. His death was confirmed by Suzanne Corkin, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who had worked closely with him for decades. Henry Molaison was 82.
From the age of 27, when he embarked on a life as an object of intensive study, he lived with his parents, then with a relative and finally in an institution. His amnesia did not damage his intellect or radically change his personality. But he could not hold a job and lived, more so than any mystic, in the moment.
...
Living at his parents’ house, and later with a relative through the 1970s, Mr. Molaison helped with the shopping, mowed the lawn, raked leaves and relaxed in front of the television. He could navigate through a day attending to mundane details — fixing a lunch, making his bed — only by drawing on what he could remember from his first 27 years.
H. M., an Unforgettable Amnesiac, Dies at 82
By BENEDICT CAREY
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/05/us/05 ... nted=print
He knew his name. That much he could remember.
He knew that his father’s family came from Thibodaux, La., and his mother was from Ireland, and he knew about the 1929 stock market crash and World War II and life in the 1940s.
But he could remember almost nothing after that.
In 1953, he underwent an experimental brain operation in Hartford to correct a seizure disorder, only to emerge from it fundamentally and irreparably changed. He developed a syndrome neurologists call profound amnesia. He had lost the ability to form new memories.
For the next 55 years, each time he met a friend, each time he ate a meal, each time he walked in the woods, it was as if for the first time.
And for those five decades, he was recognized as the most important patient in the history of brain science. As a participant in hundreds of studies, he helped scientists understand the biology of learning, memory and physical dexterity, as well as the fragile nature of human identity.
On Tuesday evening at 5:05, Henry Gustav Molaison — known worldwide only as H. M., to protect his privacy — died of respiratory failure at a nursing home in Windsor Locks, Conn. His death was confirmed by Suzanne Corkin, a neuroscientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who had worked closely with him for decades. Henry Molaison was 82.
From the age of 27, when he embarked on a life as an object of intensive study, he lived with his parents, then with a relative and finally in an institution. His amnesia did not damage his intellect or radically change his personality. But he could not hold a job and lived, more so than any mystic, in the moment.
...
Living at his parents’ house, and later with a relative through the 1970s, Mr. Molaison helped with the shopping, mowed the lawn, raked leaves and relaxed in front of the television. He could navigate through a day attending to mundane details — fixing a lunch, making his bed — only by drawing on what he could remember from his first 27 years.
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