Are you able to live the, 'chop that wood, carry water' adage?

I have a one track mind. It keeps me on track.
My simplicity is the key. It keeps me simple.

“I’ll make shoes for everyone, even you, while I go barefoot – Bob Dylan.

I try really, really, really hard to live in the moment but I’m afraid I am not always successful.

I know someone who lives by that very proverb. He recently experienced an enlightenment of sorts and found himself thrilled by existing “in the moment”. He’s very committed to his work and very content, even in times of trouble. He’s always right there with you in conversation, focusing on the present.

As someone who lives inside her brain and allows herself to be led to distraction, I am jealous of the intensity with which he lives his life. My mind is like a puppy – it wanders and leaks. So far, I’m just waiting for the right “thing” to come along and grab me by the throat, shake me to enlightenment. I hope it happens soon.

I’m afraid it’s more “answer the question” at the moment, although my boss would prefer that I be chopping the wood.

I do a lot of things (seminars, events, gatherings) that aim at transformation, personally and collectively. I hear this phrase from time-to-time in that context. And to me, the phrase makes the most sense in that context.

I think the point is that we do the same tasks (like chopping wood) before and after “enlightenment.” The question is how we do them and who we are as we do them.

There’s another Zen proverb: Before you study Zen, a mountain is a mountain. While you study Zen, a mountain is not a mountain. After you study Zen, a mountain is a mountain.

This really resonated with me when I was teaching music theory: my students would explain that they really didn’t care about all this music theory, that they just wanted to play the music, and that having to think about it actually hindered their enjoyment of it.

But what I’ve learned is that, while there is a period in there where you really can’t just listen to music for its own sake, you eventually do get back to being able to listen to music for the joy of it—but your understanding is fundamentally changed, because you hear it not only on the superficial level that you always heard, but also on a deeper, structural level: you’re not just hearing the pretty tunes and pleasant sounds, but you’re hearing the 5–6-5 relationship here and the delayed structural dominant there.

So it is with Zen, I think. When you chop wood and carry water before you study Zen, you understand it superficially. Afterwards, you do it mindfully, and you understand it on a deeper, different level.

Yeah. I have always switched it with “Wash the dishes”. Dish washing is my zen.

I think it’s a whole lot more than being in the moment. It is also doing what is in front of you to do and doing it with your full attention. And more.

In some of my moments, yes, I can do this. Not all or even most. Takes practice. Practice is about chopping wood and carrying water.

Or, as Steve Smith says in the preface to Charlotte Joko Beck’s Everyday Zen: Love and Work: “If Zen is to be integrated into Western culture, it requires a Western idiom: ‘Chop wood, carry water’ must somehow become ‘Make love, drive freeway.’”

I think I do a pretty good job of living in the moment. I have never let past decisions haunt me, and I calm any anxiety by reciting this mantra (as so eloquently belted out by Axl Rose in the song Mr. Brownstone),“Worrying is a waste of my fucking time!”

I’ve always taken this to mean something like, whether or not you’re enlightened, you still need to do the things you need to do to live. Enlightenment is nice, but it’s not going to carry your water or chop your wood for you – you still need to do that.

Since I’m nowhere near Enlightened, I couldn’t tell you if I’d still chop and carry if I were. I hope that I wouldn’t get so big an ego afterwards that I’d think I’m above daily work. I’ll try to post an update if I ever find out for sure. ;)

There are times when I’m able to connect with and live in the moment, but it takes alot of intentional energy. If I were to try to do it all the time, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else.
I would love to be enlightened and feel as one with the universe, but I think I’m just too lazy.

Sometimes what is in front of you is invisible to others.

I am totally stealing Shadling’s description of her mind. She may as well have been describing my thought processes as her own! I have very rarely had the privilege of realizing that I am fully ‘in the moment’. It has been both thrilling and accidental every single time. If I try to do it, I just can’t. At all.

My mind is like a puppy – it wanders and leaks. – Shadling, 2009

Brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant.

I’ll chop all the wood and carry all the water that’s needed, but I hope never to ignore a great metaphor.

@cwilbur- I’ve come to that same struggle studying film. At some point, my mind started fighting all the logic I was trying to force into it. It was hard to just soak in the artistic experience while also analyzing it from afar. I hope that once my studies are done, the work will have been worth it.

@augustlan- Your brain pees too?
It’s funny that you mention the whole “accidental” thing. Today I felt sick, which normally makes my brain turn to mush (mushy puppy?). However, I felt more alive than ever despite my exhaustion. Despite my expectations, I lived “in the moment”. It was a great day…

@susan- Ahaha! Thanks.

I’ve never chopped wood before. Isn’t that sad?

I really really struggle with living in the moment. I also seem to come upon it accidentally…generally it involves music, dancing, singing….

hmmm…i need to think about this more…what a great subject!!!

Excellent insight, @lynneblundell. Those are activities that engage you fully. You are (or can be) there with your whole self, having no part of your mind occupied with thoughts of future or past moments. If you can do it at all, if you can ever do it, then you know how. The thing to work on is bringing that same mindfulness, that same entire presence, to other things (goal = everything) you do.

Noted: A side benefit of the new automatic linking of names hailed with ’@’ is that it acts as a spellchecker on the names. If they don’t turn red, look again, or copy and paste.

I don’t live this way but I would like to….would love to find a meditation practice that works for me.