The Buddha once had a visitor who asked why his monks were so peaceful and radiant. He answered that they didn’t hanker after the future or try to revive the past but sustained themselves on the present. That idea of sustaining ourselves is the key. The present moment, when approached in the right way, actually gives us nourishment.

The way to find that nourishment is not just to see things as they are but to see with wisdom, to practice mindfulness with discernment. The word in Pali is satipanna. You are present with what is happening but you don’t identify with it; you’re just extremely attentive. 

The practice of intimacy is just being with the experience as it is. People are assigned jobs on retreats—vacuuming the floor, for instance—and wonder how they can be intimate with that. They often try to strong-arm their way into it, to bring some kind of extraordinary attention to what they’re doing. That lasts about twenty seconds. A better way is to give yourself to the vacuuming in a relaxed way and watch what happens. See how thoughts come up, of working more quickly so you can take a walk, perhaps. They separate you from what you’re doing. Don’t fight the process; just—in that act of seeing—come back to the task. There will then be moments, which will gradually increase, when you are with it completely. Intimacy comes from the clear seeing of separation.

Another way to practice intimacy with the present moment is to reflect on interbeing, the way so many things come together to sustain us. In Japan, where I practiced Zen, meditators acknowledge the fact of interbeing by rituals of bowing. After a sitting, for instance, they bow to their cushion and to the meditator across from them. Because you are here, they are saying, I am able to practice. Seeing other people persevere helps us to meditate. Meditators also bow to statues of the Buddha and to the hall as a whole. They even bow to the toilet.

They could also bow to toilet paper. I sometimes pose a question to my students on a long retreat: Which is more important, the teacher or toilet paper? If I were to disappear for a few days, I think you’d do pretty well. You know how to walk and sit, and you have a schedule to follow. But what if we ran out of toilet paper? That would be a catastrophe.

Sometimes we divide our time into categories: You have time for work, time for exercise, time for eating, time for your partner, time for the children, and finally, you hope, a little time for yourself. But the dharma attitude is that all time is for yourself; whatever you’re doing, however trivial, is equally important to everything else. No time is wasted.

A famous Buddhist sutra says that if one mote of dust were removed from the universe, the entire thing would collapse. That is the dharma attitude. Absolutely everything is essential.

Early in my life as a meditator, I had two encounters with death that speak to this practice of intimacy. When I was in Korea and staying at a monastery, one of the nuns died. There was a most impressive ceremony; all of the monks and nuns came together, walking in procession down a hill, and they chanted while the body was cremated. The Zen master I was sitting beside sobbed as the service took place. He was really wailing. I was embarrassed for him.

Whatever you’re doing, however trivial, is equally important to everything else. No time is wasted.

At the time I had something of an Alan Watts–paperback view of Zen. I imagined that Zen monks were serene and encountered every experience with a perfect calm. So I was troubled by that scene at the funeral; I asked for an interview with the monk who had been wailing and brought it up with him. He roared with laughter. He had entered the monastery at the same time as the nun, he explained, and he’d known her for years. He would miss her. He’d felt a deep sorrow at her funeral, had expressed it fully, and was done with it.

Some years later, when I was studying with Ajaan Suwat, he told me he’d been extremely close to his teacher. Especially when he’d been younger, he had wondered how it would be when the man died. He had been quite fearful. But his practice deepened, and when his teacher actually did die, he felt complete serenity, along with a deep love. He understood that his teacher had been an impermanent phenomenon like any other and that in dying he’d been following an inevitable law.

That made me wonder about the Korean monk. I told Ajaan Suwat the story, and he listened carefully. At the end he said, “If his understanding had been deeper, he wouldn’t have carried on that way.”

I’m not sure. If I had to pick, I’d say that the first monk’s reaction seemed more authentic. But I don’t think of either of these reactions as being superior, as long as they expressed the truth of the moment. The important thing is to not have an ideal about how you handle a situation like grieving. If you’re serene, feel serenity. If you’re sorrowful, feel that. Both feelings could be perfectly authentic.

In a way, this practice is the same for the advanced student as for the rank beginner. All you can do is be true to your experience as it is. Once I was sitting in on an interview at the Cambridge Zen Center and a man came in who was extremely excited, saying he’d just had an enlightenment experience. He described it in great detail. The teacher listened and, in the kindest possible way, asked “Can you show me this experience right now?” He was letting the student know that if the experience had happened in the past, he didn’t really have it anymore. What is important is what is happening now.

We often have the feeling about one thing or another in our lives: If only this weren’t here, I would be happy. If only I weren’t afraid, or angry, or lonely. If only I didn’t have to do the dishes, or take out the trash, or do my income tax. If only I weren’t old, if I weren’t sick, if I didn’t have to die. But those things are here. This is the situation as it is. And none of it keeps you from practicing. None of it really keeps you from being happy. It is what you do with it that makes a difference.

And the thing to do is always the same: Give yourself to it completely. Be intimate.

♦

Adapted from Living in the Light of Death: On the Art of Being Truly Alive by Larry Rosenberg © 2000 by Larry Rosenberg. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.