Suzuki Roshi once said that life is like getting into a boat that you know is eventually going to sink. We are all technically alive, but not necessarily by choice. We didn’t choose to be born and our hearts beat indifferent to our voluntary efforts. Being alive by choice is another story and this is what Suzuki Roshi was talking about. Step one is knowing that this is all going to end, that one day our efforts and all we’ve worked for will fade away, and not just biological death, but each and every moment of our life, which dies and is transformed into a new moment. Everything is in a constant state of change, always dying, always transforming. On a cellular level, we die every day and every seven years we have a completely new body. Accepting this transitory nature of the world is the first step toward living vitally.
The alternative is to continue being technically alive, yet living in a kind of denial about life’s natural transitions. This kind of life is a constant struggle and for the most fortunate of those who struggle with this is the capacity for hope. Hope in an afterlife. Hope that death will take its time getting here, that it is far into the future so we do not have to think about it. But more commonly, hope that life circumstances will eventually change for the better.
Hope and fear are two sides of the same coin. Essentially, hope means that there is something wrong with the way things are in the present and that there must be something better down the road. Of course, that something better is never guaranteed, but it’s enough to bank on when we are consumed with fear. Fear of how things really are, that there is something lacking. At the bottom of this aversion is the assumption that if I feel pain or uncertainty, there must be something wrong. It’s our reaction against what we fear, that creates suffering. This keeps us constantly on the move to get away from the present moment. We cannot accept the present moment so we want to change it somehow, to control it. But if we accepted the true nature of things, we would know that each moment dies anyway, with or without our intentional efforts to make it so. In fact, our efforts to change or move away from the present tends to keep us locked in a futile struggle of our own making, while life continues on without our participation. We’re like dogs chasing our own tails.
There is nothing holding the present moment and this is what is so hard about being in it. We want something solid to stand on. We can spend our whole lives searching for that certainty, that guarantee, and in the meantime, while we are technically alive, we are not engaging life in the present moment. We are standing on the pier with one foot on a boat contemplating how we can make it unsinkable, or strategizing ways to maneuver the storms. It’s the difference between living life on a pier, dubiously looking out onto the vast ocean, and living life moment to moment out on the open sea. Dangerous? Possibly. Unpredictable? Definitely. Guarantees? Only one. It’s going to sink.
All on board?