In A Fevered State, You Project A Past And A Future Onto The Present Moment. The Present Is Boundless

太極圖

Oh pray for me, Diana...

“We are living in a culture entirely hypnotized by the illusion of time, in which the so-called present moment is felt as nothing but an infinitesimal hairline between an all-powerfully causative past and an absorbingly important future. We have no present. Our consciousness is almost completely preoccupied with memory and expectation. We do not realize that there never was, is, nor will be any other experience than present experience. We are therefore out of touch with reality. We confuse the world as talked about, described, and measured with the world which actually is. We are sick with a fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas.”

— Alan Watts

“Simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures. Simple in actions and thoughts, you return to the source of being. Patient with both friends and enemies, you accord with the way things are. Compassionate toward yourself, you reconcile all beings in the world.”

— Laozi, (Fifth Century BCE) Chinese Taoist Master

"Before enlightenment, no one can rely on strength. Enlightenment comes across by itself, and enlightenment can only be helped by a ray of enlightened power." Dogen Zenji

[Dogen Zenji (19 January 1200 - 22 September 1253) was a Japanese monk, writer, poet, philosopher and Zen master, and the founder of the Soto sect in Japan.]

Being lost and being enlightened are like two sides of the same coin, in fact they are one and the same. So you don't have to be in panic to seek enlightenment, but when you are lost, you should just be lost. 

You may try the hardest to “enlightenment, enlightenment” and think, for example, that we must do Zazen sitting meditation, read Buddhist scriptures, and so on.

But it is a force beyond enlightenment. Enlightenment comes to you far beyond enlightenment. In other words, Dogen teaches us that enlightenment has nothing to do with the efforts we make to try our hardest to find a way to become enlightened. Enlightenment comes one day out of the blue. So if you are lost now, then do not hesitate to be lost. Not ‘more lost’, but ‘firmly lost’. 

It's okay to be ‘just lost.’ Just think so and just be lost. 

“At times I feel as if I am spread out over the landscape and inside things, and am myself living in every tree, in the splashing of the waves, in the clouds and the animals that come and go, in the procession of the seasons. There is nothing… with which I am not linked.”

—

Carl Jung

art by Vanessa Lemen

"There is no ignorance,

and no end to ignorance.

There is no old age and death,

and no end to old age and death.

There is no suffering, no cause of suffering,

no end to suffering, no path to follow.

There is no attainment of wisdom,

and no wisdom to attain.

The Bodhisattvas rely on the Perfection of Wisdom, and so with no delusions, they feel no fear, and have Nirvana here and now."

—the heart sutra

Dune: The Litany Against Fear by Neeff

Solid — like a body — sustained — loved — by the translucent — transparent and transubstantial— 道

“Baikal Zen”: Rocks that have fallen on the ice of Lake Baikal are heated by sunlight and emit infrared rays that melt the ice below. Once the sun is gone, the ice becomes solid again, creating a small support for the rock above.