Title:

A little advice

Post Text

In the Zen circle, we say 'This is it.' What you are experiencing in the present moment, this is what you are looking for. This is it. You don't have to look for it in another place, at another time. This is a very wonderful door of liberation. You have to put this into practice. It will relieve a lot of suffering. Our civilization is not going in that direction. We are always looking for something outside of ourselves. We are always running to the future. We are not capable of recognizing that the conditions for our happiness are already there in the here and the now. One of the easiest exercises is to take a piece of paper and sit down at the foot of a tree and write down the conditions of happiness that you have in this moment. Like 'I have eyes still in good condition.' That is a condition of happiness. You only need to open your eyes, and then a paradise of forms and colors are there for you. Your ears, if you listen, hear the songs of the birds, the wind in the trees. You can hear - it's a paradise of sound for you. You can hear the talking of children and other beloved people. You have plenty of conditions to be happy in the here and the now, and yet you don't treasure them. You step on them, and you are looking for other conditions of happiness - like fame, like power, like sex, like wealth. And many who have plenty of these things suffer very deeply because they are not capable of being happy. So with a pencil you can write down some conditions of happiness that are available in the here and the now, and you will be surprised to see that two full pages are not enough for you to write down your happiness. You don't have to go anywhere else, or to the future, in order to be happy.