“We can never know
about the days to come…But we think about them anyway.”
Ain’t that the truth! I am 54 years old, and I’m just now beginning
to understand how much of my life I have frittered away thinking and worrying
about the days to come.
Have any of you ever read Eckhart Tolle’s compelling book, The Power of Now? It is a brilliant and
life-changing book, which has been heavily influenced by Buddhist thought. The Power of Now argues that, while we may
like to think that we control our minds, the truth is that our minds actually
control us. Buddhists and Hindus are in complete agreement on this, on our
minds being pretty much out of our control! And the Buddha tells us that the particular
way our minds control us is by filling our heads with both regrets about the
past and worries about the future – past regret and future worry. And as long
as our minds are stuck on the past and future, the one place we can’t be is “here.”
Our bodies and physical selves may be “here,” but our minds can be in so many
other places. And whenever our minds are somewhere other than right here, right
now, where our bodies are, we are missing out. As a good friend of mine once
told me in his inimitable Brooklyn NY accent, “Tobes, you know what your
problem is? You got one foot in the past, one foot in the future, and you’re
just pissing all over the present!” If we’re not here – really here in the present
– once it is past - is something we can never, ever get back.
As we continue our series on what Christians can learn from
other religions, I want you to know that it has been the teachings of the
Buddha that have helped me begin to get a better handle on this tricky business
of time and the way my churning mind focuses on everything but the present. Much
like the their Hindu forbearers, Buddhists believe that the human mind – and
the stuff we allow ourselves to think about - is our biggest problem when it
comes to living fully in the present, the way God intended us to live.
Jesus, like the
Buddha, taught that we shouldn’t worry about the future. He said the each day
has enough troubles and challenges of its own. But you know as well as I do, especially
if you’re a worrier, that somebody telling you “not to worry” - even if that
somebody is Jesus or Buddha - is a little like telling someone not to picture a pink elephant. It can
almost do more harm than good.
Fortunately, neither Jesus nor Buddha stopped at just
telling us not to worry or not to think about the future. They both gave us
some tools to help us in this struggle with our minds, ways we can be more
present. The Buddha introduced his followers to a practice called “mindfulness.”
In this practice, one zeroes in completely on his own breathing, on the in and
the out breath, with a focused concentration. From there, the practitioner
begins to concentrate only on his immediate surroundings, what is right in
front of his nose, be it a flower, a sidewalk, or a dear friend’s face. If you
are walking, being mindful might mean trying to actually feel and pay attention
to each footfall as it touches the ground. If the wind is blowing, a mindful
person endeavors to feel its breath on her cheek. A mindful person takes
careful, appreciative notice of whatever is right before him or her - right
here, right now, in this moment and only in this moment.
There’s a great story about this very thing in the Christian
scriptures. It’s the story I presented about Martha and Mary, for it recounts
in chilling terms both what happens when we are mindful…and when we are not mindful.
Jesus enters this home and immediately sister Mary drops everything to sit at
the Lord's feet, to listen to every word Jesus said. Mary takes a deep breath
and focuses on what it right in front of her, the Rabbi Jesus. Mary is mindful.
But Martha, we’re told, was “distracted by all the preparations that had to be
made.” She’s scurrying around, trying to prepare the perfect meal, trying to
find the perfect centerpiece for the table.
You can see the struggle, right? You can feel the tension
and grasp the trade off, right? Martha is playing the hostess. She wants to
show her love and respect for Jesus by straightening things up, by making the
house look nice, and by fixing him a really good meal. And so soon Martha comes
to Jesus in bitterness, crying, 'Lord, don't you care that my sister has left
me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!' And the mindful messiah replied,
'Martha, Martha, you are worried and upset about so many things, but only one
thing is needed just now. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be
taken away from her.'" (Luke 10:38-42) Had Carly Simon been around in
Jesus’ day, he might have sang to Martha - “And
I wonder, if you’re really with me now…Or just chasing after some finer day…”
Now to me the question this story raises is not so much
which sister is right and which sister is wrong. It’s more about how satisfied
each sister winds up being with the approach she took. Martha is clearly agitated,
frustrated, running around like a chicken with her head cut off, and ticked
that her sister isn’t helping her. All of her scurrying around and
well-intentioned hospitality didn’t bring her any contentment at all. We know
how unsatisfied Martha is by what she says and how she reacts.
Martha missed the present. She missed the gift, the gift
that can only be experienced in the moment. And she can’t get it back. We can
only imagine how Martha must have felt when Jesus left her house that night – never to return - for he was dead in a
matter of weeks. Talk about regret! Talk about not being present! Mary was the
mindful one; she looked at what was right in front of her, leaving all else for
later, for another time. Again, to quote Carly Simon, Mary tried “to look into
your eyes right now, and just stay right here, cause these are the good old days!”
I think that Jesus understood that these ARE the good old days, that THIS is the day that the Lord has made…and we are to rejoice and be
glad in it and in every moment. Not only did Jesus understand the power of now,
but he actually did all that he did in order to bring us more fully into the
present. Think about it…what were the two biggest thrusts of his ministry? First,
Jesus focused relentlessly on
forgiveness, on getting us to understand, believe, and accept that God had
wiped clean the slate of our past. There is no question in my mind that one of
the main reasons Jesus was so focused on forgiveness in his ministry was so
that we wouldn’t waste another moment of our lives regretting and lamenting our
past and our mistakes.
The second thing Jesus did in attempt to pull us more fully
into the present was to give us countless assurances about our future, our
future with him. He told his disciples that his Father’s house had many
mansions, plenty of rooms for all of us. Jesus emphasized this in hopes that we
wouldn’t waste another moment of our lives worrying about the future. He wanted
us to know that our ticket had been punched, that our future with God was
utterly secure.
When we think about these two major points of emphasis in Jesus' ministry, we can see that he was after something very similar to what the Buddha was after – getting his followers to be more fully present in the here and now, in this very moment. It’s almost as if Jesus directed his entire ministry to assuring us about two things: 1) our complete and utter forgiveness – that God has forgiven our past and 2) that we have a place to which we’re going, a ticket that has already been punched for an eternal future with God.
Brothers and sisters, to regret our past or to worry about
our future is not only a colossal waste of time and energy; it is also a
complete dismissal of Jesus’ cross and resurrection. Jesus’ entire life AND
death were aimed at getting us – his beloved children – to live in the present
with joy, passion, and gratitude. Maybe if we can accept and trust these two
central thrusts of Jesus’ ministry – that our past has been forgiven and that our
future with God has been secured – maybe then we can open the door to the truly
amazing present. Maybe if we can practice -on a daily and even hourly basis - what
the Buddha called “mindfulness,” maybe then we will “stay right here…for THESE
ARE the good old days!”
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