Medicine

The Buddha taught a method for keeping stress out of our lives. Until the summer my job and home life was laden with such stress, so I practised a lot, and hey, it worked - potential stress was often nipped in the bud and present stress was generally dissolved. I was less stressed when I remembered to practise than when I did not. Result!

But here's my dilemma. My home life has become easier, owing to a change in my wife's professional situation, and my own job has recently improved, owing to a little down-shifting I arranged - so in my life as a whole, much less stress arises. Feeling thus healthier, I am taking my Zen "medicine" less regularly. Yet I still think of myself as a Buddhist, and Buddhists practise regularly,  right?

Ok, everything changes, so these good times cannot last. I know that. But in the meantime, what should a Buddhist do when his life is going well?

Walk On!

I remember a scene from an old Popeye cartoon, back when they made feature length cartoon for the theaters (15-30 minutes). In this scene, Popeye was chasing a mysterious creature that started up some stairs that were simply floating in the sky.

Going up the stairs Popeye noticed that as he went to the next stair the stair he just stepped from had vanished. He was now high in the air and there was no turning back, even the stair he was on was dissolving, his only choice was to move forward.

This is the nature of time, there is only the step you are standing on (which is dissolving) and the next one you will take, everything else is an illusion.

We cannot go back, nor can we stand still, our only choice is to take the next step.