The Beautiful Now

Upaya priest Ray Olson created an adaptation from an old gosepl hymn:

Shall we gather in the now? The beautiful, the beautiful the now…
Yes, we’ll gather in the now, basking in the beauty of the now…

Ray Olson

This adaptation is similar to a song that we sing in sangha — the Mindfulness in Healing sitting group that meets at the Pine Street Clinic on Wednesday nights — and the monasteries and practice centers in the tradition of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. It goes like this:

Happiness is here and now.
I have dropped my worries.
Nothing to do. Nowhere to go.
There’s no need for hurry.

Happiness is here and now.
I have dropped my worries.
Something to do. Somewhere to go.
But, there’s no need for hurry.

Both of these verses are about the beautiful now. They teach us that happiness can only be found in the present moment. Any activity that takes us out of the present moment is bound to affect our state of happiness.

Here is what Cheri Huber and Ashwini Narayanan say about the beautiful now in “I Don’t Want To, I Don’t Feel Like It: How Resistance Controls Your Life and What to Do about It:”

When we live in the now, we open ourselves to being informed by the intelligence animating all. The barriers erected by what and why (“What am I doing wrong, and why can’t I fix it?”) fall away, and we enter the dynamic process that is Life living. In that moment, questions and answers fall away in an experience of what is.

I find all of these quotes very interesting and real. Thich Nhat Hanh teaches us that happiness can only be found in the present moment.

Are you present for your life experiences?

I Don’t Want To, I Don’t Feel Like It: How Resistance Controls Your Life and What to Do About It by Cheri Huber Ashwini Narayanan Employing the tenets of Zen Buddhist awareness practice, the book provides numerous exercises and self-help tools for working through problems with resistance, revealing how resistance operates in everyd… [Read More…]