Willow catkins, by the River Spey, Aviemore
After last weekend’s spring weather we paid for it during the week with a rather chilly few days and fresh snow on the hills. However, today has been another perfect day. Perfect for gardening, for just being outside…
I took an evening walk along the river bank, and found these willow catkins catching the last rays of evening sun. The bees were enjoying them too – absolutely coated in sticky yellow pollen.
The “now” is just as important for Zen as the nothing and the void, the mu and the ku. It is practical Zen wisdom to do everything as if it were the only time, with utter concentration on doing it at this very moment and without thinking of future or past. And it is a deep Zen conviction that eternity is “now” – not, as Christianity says, something beyond the foreseeable future and beyond death. You enter eternity at each and every moment, with each and every “Now!” Hence the “now” counts and the idea of an endless period of time hardly exists. The past has passed, even only by seconds, and the future does not yet exist. It might exist tomorrow, or in a few minutes. But not “now.” Whoever is not living in the “now” lives nowhere.
– Joachim Ernst Berendt, ‘The World is Sound’