Should One Argue with The Buddha?

I know what The Buddha was trying to say in this quote: all we really have is the present moment. If we spend most of our time in the past or the future, we are living in a place we cannot affect. All we have control over is our "right now."

It is tempting to re-write the past with our memories... It is so much easier to live in nostalgia-ville where we can conveniently forget the challenges and only remember the romance. I believe this is where many people in our country who are extrememly conservative- religious or political- spend most of their time. It is also easier to spend our time talking about what will happen in heaven after we die than to begin to work now to have a preview of heaven on earth.

However, realistically, we know that if we do not ever dream/think about the future, if we fail to plan for the future, then we it arrives, we will be at the mercy of our past sowing- a time when we had no thought for the reaping.

Being a well grounded person means looking at the big picture of our lives: looking at who we are called to be and how we wish to grow into that calling, choosing the path that is right for us now, and following that path through all of its twists and turns and ups and downs. Eventually the future will become the present and we will have to live in it. If we have paid attention to the trees in the now with some thought for the forest of the future, the land we inhabit during our lifetime will be lush with our careful plans and blossoming dreams.





“Cheshire Puss,…Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”                                                                                      from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll





"Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line."
                                                                                     -Ralph Waldo Emerson





No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
                                                                                    -Harry Emerson Fosdick