One Time, One Meeting

About ten years ago, I wrote a check for $ 57.00 to the Village of Water. At the time, I was attempting to pay my water bill. Oblivious of my oversight, I mailed the check, and somehow the Village of Alfred managed to cash it. When the bank returned the canceled check, as banks used to do, I discovered my blunder.

What was I thinking? I asked myself. Or as my mother would have said, Whatever possessed you? The script was neat, the handwriting definitely mine. The check bore my signature. But whoever wrote the “Village of Water” was miles away at the time.

However extreme, my error was not uncommon. Nor was it peculiar to professors. Quite possibly, the chickadees at our feeder and the deer who eat our dogwoods live continuously in the present. They have to. But we human beings have the option of being elsewhere, and that elsewhere is often the future or the past. And when we are not revisiting the past or rehearsing the future, we are often absorbed in abstract thought.

To return us to the present moment is the first purpose of Zen meditation. The Vietnamese Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh describes the practice in this way:

Meditation means you have to be present in the present moment. If the body is here but the mind is wandering elsewhere, in that moment you’re not present—you’re not present for yourself, and you’re not present for your husband, your children, your brothers or sisters, your nation, or your people. That is the opposite of meditation. Being present in the present moment means you are not being imprisoned by the past or sucked up by the future.

As Thich Nhat Hanh further explains, being present in the present moment does not preclude reflection, planning, or visionary thought. Rather, it returns the wandering mind, which doesn’t know it is wandering, to an awareness of whatever it is up to.

In Zen teachings, this capacity for being present is known as mindfulness, and it is an essential component of Zen discipline. Mindfulness may be cultivated in many ways, but at the beginning we can best develop it by sitting still, with our spines straight and the rest of our bodies relaxed. Maintaining that posture for ten, twenty, or thirty minutes, we bring a gentle, non-judgmental attention to our breath, our feelings, our passing thoughts, our changing states of mind. We become present for ourselves.

But can we also become present for other people? Beneficial though it is, the mindfulness cultivated in seated meditation is of limited value if it does not extend into our daily lives, where our presence—and often, our absence—profoundly affects others around us. “When you walk,” Zen teachers tell us, “just walk.” That admonishment directs us to give undivided attention to the one thing we are doing, be it cooking dinner, or writing a check, or listening to a friend. Mindfulness of this kind grows naturally from the habit of daily sitting, but it it may also be practiced by anyone at any time.

By way of demonstration, may I suggest that if you are drinking a cup of coffee while you are reading this column, put down your coffee and give full attention to the column. Or better yet, put down the column and give full attention to your coffee. Hold the cup in both hands, as Zen monks do, and inhale the aroma. Contemplate the origins, the history, and the nature of the drink you are about to ingest. Then drink your coffee, giving full attention to its taste. Continue this practice for a week or more, and see what you discover.