Zen Wisdom for the New Year: Stop Waiting for Future Enlightenment

New Year’s Resolutions and the Illusion of Future Change

Whenever we approach a new year, we witness the rise of hopes and expectations for a better future. People come up with all sorts of New Year’s resolutions. And these resolutions usually revolve around some kind of personal improvement. Some want to live healthier, some want to make changes they have feared making for a long time, some want to reorient themselves in their careers, some want to meditate more—whatever.

This is neither good nor bad, and I think there are worse things than trying to make a positive change for one’s future.

However, from a Zen perspective, we must be very careful, because what usually happens is this: We feel we lack something, we want to overcome this lack, and we plan to do so at some moment in the future. We definitely don’t want to do it now, but only in the future. And once this future moment arrives, we realize that it’s not different from the very moment we planned this great transformation, and we just continue as we always have.

This is not even exclusive to New Year’s resolutions; it happens in our everyday lives, especially when we are on a spiritual path.

Waiting for Enlightenment Delays It

When we practice some form of spirituality and think that we are not enlightened, but that we will become enlightened once we make this practice perfect, we are deluded.

We project an idea—the idea of enlightenment, which is only a limited mental concept—into another idea, called the future, which is something that doesn’t exist, since only the present moment exists.

When we do this, we purposely delay the recognition of truth—the absolute nature of things—and remain deluded.

"After I practice enough meditation, I will be enlightened at some point in the future."

"I am not whole and complete right now, but at some point in the future, I might become whole and complete if I just live life the right way."

Not only do we delay our own enlightenment, but we give power to outside forces. We make ourselves dependent on time, on some random date in the calendar, as with New Year's resolutions, or we depend on some mysterious object called karma.

Only This Moment

Zen means making the New Year happen at every moment.

Since there is truly no other place to act than the present moment, why should we construct an idea that prevents us from acting right now?

Ancient Zen Master Linji once said that, according to his view, we are no different from Buddha, so why do we think that something is lacking?

Again, I’m not trying to convey the idea that we should abandon our efforts to become better human beings. I only want to suggest that it may be helpful for us to become aware of the many ways we deceive ourselves. Especially if we are on a spiritual path, we must examine every movement that appears in our minds. And whenever we expect something to happen in the future, we create a mental image of what is not the present moment but an alternate reality.

We can see that this mental image of a so-called future is only imagined—it’s merely a thought appearing in our minds in the present moment. It’s not the future itself; it never is the future itself, as something like the future clearly doesn’t exist at all.

The only moment that is, is right now, and this is the only place where we can act if we want to.

Returning to the Primary Point

Korean Zen Master Seung Sahn called the direct non-dual experience of reality, the present moment the "primary point." 

And he went on to compare it to a scale. When there is no weight on the scale, it points to zero. If we put something on it, it points to 1 pound or whatever, but as soon as we take the weight off again, the pointer goes back to zero.

He also made the same point by comparing the primary point to a calculator. You can do all kinds of calculations, but if you want to start a new one, you have to reset the calculator to zero. If you keep the number from the previous calculation, you will get a wrong result. The more calculations you keep adding without resetting the calculator to zero, the further off you will go.

The same is true for us. The more ideas we keep adding, the more confused we will get. Zen means resetting your mind—resetting your mind to zero at every moment. Only in this way can we have clarity. But how can you press the reset button in your own mind?

Zen teaches a few methods to do this, and what these methods have in common is that they bring you back to the present moment—to what is right now.

One method is to become aware of what's happening right now. For example, I am sitting here talking to the camera. In order to have this realization, I had to press the reset button in my mind. If I kept thinking about something else, attaching to these thoughts and not letting them go, I wouldn’t be able to see clearly what’s happening right now.

Just sitting here, talking. Nothing more.

Now the mind may come up with different ideas and interpretations about this moment—judging the moment, trying to make sense of it, whatever. If I then keep thinking about these ideas, I will go unconscious. My mind will wander in all sorts of directions, and I will even forget that I am just sitting here and doing what I do.

I may even stay unconscious for the rest of the day until I suddenly wake up again to the present moment, when my mind hits the reset button. Then, I will recognize that I have been in dreamland for the past few hours. I haven’t been really there in what’s happening right now. 

Zen practice means cultivating this wake-up moment—cultivating the act of pressing the reset button in our minds.

And we can only do that NOW.

If we think, "Wow, this sounds great, I want to press the reset button more often," then we have already gone into dreamland again.

In this sense, every moment is New Year. New Year is not in the future or in the past; it’s only always right now. 

This is the only place where we can have direct experience of reality. Instead of celebrating New Year only once a year, celebrate it THIS moment, since there is only this moment and nothing else.

Wish you all the best!

Your friend of the way, Bye!