Kids and mindfulness

Hi.

Have you ever watched a kid playing?
There’s something special about the way they can pick up a stick, shout “STICK!!” and run into the world causing havoc. There’s nothing more in this moment than the kid, the stick and the world…
I would like to call this special something “mindfulness” or “presence” if you will.

Master Dogen wrote on Time (in Being-Time, Uji)

See each thing in this entire world as a moment of time.
Things do not hinder one another, just as moments do not hinder one another. ...
Each moment is all being, is the entire world.
Reflect now whether any being or any world is left out of the present moment.

Master Dogen wished to convey that each moment of time and being is not anything apart from you,it is your existential time-and-being. So, he wrote in Uji, Being-Time ...

Because real existence is only this exact moment, all moments of Being-Time are the whole of Time, and all existent things and all existent phenomena are moments of Time …
If Time does not take the form of leaving and coming, [a task done in the past] is the present as Being-Time.
If Time does take the form of leaving and coming, you yet have this present moment of Being-Time, which is just Being-Time itself.

Mindfulness is an “new catchphrase”, an phenomenon not much older than 10-years or so, you might think. But that’s not the case. There’s been something like it in every culture, be it an modern western culture, an Hawaiian native culture or in this case an Buddhist culture.

Now, what does this give you, why am i writing this?
Well, for one, you have to have an solid foundation to stand on, and it’s always good to have some knowledge of things.
Mindfulness isn’t just this moment, it’s all-permeating, it’s everything, just as Dogen says. You can’t just try doing it either. I often quote another master, yoda :

“Do or do not... there is no try.”

And this is a vital part of mindfulnesspractice to, if you’re only trying you’re not doing…

Which brings us back to the child with the stick. He’s not trying anything. He knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s got a stick, and it’s him against the world.
And that leaves me the third part of this essay, the way things are is just the way things are.
You know what, it's ok. It's all OK!!
Shit happens, deal with it. It's all about "being the razor's edge", not falling to one side or the other, not being cut, not "missing the point".
If this happens, do this. If that happens, do that. When life's roller coaster goes up, go up. When heading down, head down. Just ride the ride. Sometimes it can be very hard. Then let it be hard.
Your sympathy for me might feel great, but will it help?
I have to take me, and pick myself up, to get on with it, even when there is no me to pick myself up. I’m not saying it will be easy. just saying it is so, And it's ok! It's all OK!!

Maybe that's enlightenment, to see that "everything is Ok"!...
It's just what it is...
Is that ok with you?

Mtfbwy
Fugen