“What’s up Zak”, Sensei looked concerned as he sat on the bench next to the dejected green belt.
The rest of the class gathered around to cheer Zak up….
“It’s life Sensei……. Trouble always seems to come in heaps, sometimes I wish I was someone else and somewhere else….. anyone and anywhere apart from me and here….”
“Don’t worry Zak, we’ll help you hide the bodies” chimed in his friend Charlie. Zak begrudgingly managed a wan smile.
“The thing is Charlie, it’s like swimming upstream, there’s just no let up, bills, family, sickness, injury, can’t get around to training can’t keep up… I just feel that I’m losing it….”
“Ah….. no va va voom……” said Charlie with a French accent at a hopeless attempt to make Zak smile…
“Shall I tell you my theory on that Zak? “ asked Sensei…
A flicker of interest found it’s way onto Zak’s face, Sensei could always stimulate anyone’s mind with his (often outrageously funny) theories. “Yeah go on then” he said a weak smile already finding it’s way on his troubled face.
“My theory is that you are always the right person in the right place at the right time!”
Zak looked confused… “Right……… and how do you make that out then?”
“In the first place, you can’t be anyone else, right?”
“Right…”
“So there’s no point in wasting anymore thought on that one, you MUST be the right person because you couldn’t be anyone else that you might want to be anyway!
At this time you can’t be anywhere else…”
“I could be..”
“No you can’t be…. You could’ve been with planning earlier – but…. Now you can’t!”
“Sensei…. Sometimes I wonder about your sanity…” said Charlie….
“Stick with me here…. At this time, you couldn’t be anyone else anywhere else – right?”
“Riiiight……”
“So… you must be the right person, in the right place, at the right time!”
“And the point is……” asked Zak.
“It’s karma! You’re the right person, in the right place, at the right time…. Now what are you going to do with that opportunity?”
“What you’re saying, is make the best of it?”
“More than that, this is the only opportunity you’ll get, whoever you are, wherever you are at this moment, it IS special, a ‘one off’… never to be repeated… it’s an attitude of mind that enables you to see opportunities, to realise the value of the moment.
If you waste it by thinking that you should be someone else, somewhere else…. It’s gone…. Lost forever…. It will never happen again. Look at all those people, you see walking down the street, on buses and trains…. Lost… you could hang a ‘gone fishing’ or an ‘out to lunch’ sign on their foreheads, they’re somewhere else, not in the present, not ‘awake’. They have a body and a functioning mind that is not awake in the ‘now’…. They are missing the only thing that exists in their life…. What a shame!”
They all laughed. “Yeah, they’re like zombies on the train in the morning – it can look really weird sometimes” said Charlie.
“You have a weird way of looking at things Sensei, but I actually think I understand what you’re saying, every moment of life is special and to wish for something that cannot be is a bit stupid…..” said Zak.
“In a talk the Buddha gave, he said that if you put all the seas of the world together and threw a wooden hoop on the surface, that for someone to be born with the capacity to be ‘awake’ is the equivalent of a turtle swimming to the surface and putting his head through the hoop” said Sensei.
“You really are mad!” laughed Charlie.
“Let’s look at it in another way…” said Sensei, “if you thought about all your past life so far, how long would it take you?”
“Erm……not too long….. actually” said Charlie.
“5 minutes?”
“Actually, probably less than that! Now that’s worrying!”
“So, it would be fair to say that the present moment, ‘real time’ is stretched… and it condenses behind you….”
“Crikey….. said Zak… so I’ve been wasting a lot by not being present and mindful in each moment….”
“Exactly. ‘Mindful’ is a good word, used by meditators the world over….”
“Careful how you say that Sensei!” (laughter)
“The point is that you can only be YOU here and now, it is a once only opportunity that the majority of people miss, it is ‘stretched’ time of ‘nowness’ that will shrink into next to nothing behind you and pass away with your body. Make the most of the experience. The future is a mystery but much of it can be shaped by the now. The now can be wisened by the experiences of the past. Can you see how it works? You shape the future by the wisdom of your past experiences and action in the present…..
Zak, your past has been too thoughtless and your now is a prisoner to your negative daydreams - remember the adage:
Give me serenity to understand that which I cannot change,
Courage to change that which I can,
And wisdom to know the difference……”
The whole class gave a thoughtful nod, then Charlie said….. “you really are mad though Sensei….”
“Yeah I know Charlie…… that’s what keeps me sane…..”