by Cem Şen December 28th, 2014

In my younger days, I'd read an article on how when one is young, the days go by fast but the years slow and when one gets old, the days go by slow but the years fast. With the immortality of youth, I'd laughed at this.

As I got older and realized how the years really were passing faster, this time I remembered a Zen Master's words: "when lightning strikes, a man who doesn't say life goes by as fast as lightning is a happy man".

Time, to a person with thoughts and ideas, due to these thoughts, will pass differently than what a clock shows. Sometimes a restless mind, during meditation, can perceive one hour like ten hours, and sometimes a peaceful, calm mind can perceive two hours like half an hour. There can be such a mindset that time stops. Even if lightning strikes, time doesn't pass.

It is so that there is no such thing as time, only the mind passes.

To be correct, we grasp that what passes isn't time at all, but our minds. With this first clue, we start to grasp that everything that exists is the mind.

This understanding makes the most important thing, uncertainty, disappear. How can a man who has been rid of uncertainty be restless?

When we don't understand the source of our pain, the ignorance that keeps us from seeing the truth; a happy, peaceful, joyful being, covers us like dark clouds that cover blue skies. When our ignorance tries to convince us that the skies are dark, we have difficulty grasping that in reality we live under clear skies and that this clarity is our true nature.

Photographer: Chris Barbalis | Source: Unsplash

When I asked my teacher how can I achieve a "clear sky mind", he suggested the most perfect teaching that has been developed throughout the history of the universe: "To sit just like a stupid man and forget your self (the hypothetical Self, which ignorance creates)

Maybe on New Years Eve, you will sit like a stupid man, for a few minutes, and forget yourself; and with it, all your expectations, requests, fears that you no longer need.

I wish this new year offers all of us the opportunity to become wiser and happier.

With feelings of friendship,

Cem Şen

Translated by Deniz Dinler