George Harrison was right when he wrote “… as it’s not like it was before …” in the words to the song Be Here Now on his 1973 album Living in the Material World. Here is the first verse: 

Remember, now, be here now


As it's not like it was before


The past, was, be here now


As it's not like it was before - it was 

Apparently, his inspiration for this profound statement was the book of the same name by the spiritual teacher Ram Dass, who died only in December of last year at the age of 88. When asked if he could sum up his life's message, he replied, "I help people as a way to work on myself, and I work on myself to help people ...” 

I like that a lot. For me, it seems to sum up a whole way of life that I wholeheartedly subscribe to. I haven’t read any of Ram Dass’s books or listened to his teachings. And I have my own version of his message: “I find it helpful to view everything that happens to me as an opportunity to realise something about myself and the world.” That sounds pretty selfish, but it doesn’t feel that way. And I haven’t always felt like that. But it works well for me these days. I don’t always feel that I need to do something to change what I have realised, even when it is unpleasant. Just to realise how I am and how things are seems to have the effect of initiating some sort of change in my relationship to the world. That sounds a bit hopeful, even a bit mystical, but that’s how it seems to work. As if some invisible being is holding up a mirror in front of me, and as long as I take a careful look at what I see in the mirror, I am able to move on. If I don’t see what is there, the mirror appears again sometime later in different circumstances to give me a chance to look again. And again … 

Anyway, back to the present … Or rather, my present memories of the past. Fifty years ago this year I was climbing in the Himalayas. During the three months that we were high in the snows, one experience sticks in my memory. It was when we reached the top of our highest peak and sat down on a rock in the snow. At that moment, the clouds parted and we could see our base camp, some 4000 feet lower down at the foot of the glacier. And rather than feeling some sense of achievement, at that moment, I became aware that I was just sitting in the snow. It was a feeling of peace and contentment that I didn’t really understand fully until many years later. It was so unlike any feeling of achievement or of reaching a goal. From that moment in 1970, my desire to climb mountains dissolved, and within 3 years I had stopped climbing completely. 

I had noticed clearly for the first time in my life that I was fully present. I was “here, now”. But to arrive in the present and to know clearly that I am in the present has been a long journey for me. Years later, I found that other people have also been on the same long journey, so clearly described in the first four lines of this poem by T.S. Eliot, a poem I like so much that I included it at the start of my book Between Heaven and Earth, a translation and commentary on Nagarjuna’s Mulamadhyamakakarika. 

We shall not cease from exploration


And the end of all our exploring


Will be to arrive where we started


And know the place for the first time. 

I think we are all on that same journey of exploration. As my journey through the mountains stopped, I started to climb my inner mountains by training as a therapist. Then I went to Japan to find a new life after my marriage ended, and stumbled upon a philosophy that exactly matched the different aspects of my journey through life, and a practice that helped me to arrive where I started and to know that place. For the first time. Again and again, each time I practice, I arrive where I started and know the place for the first time – and as George says, “… it’s not like it was before”. 

What do climbing mountains and zazen, the practice of balance, have in common? You don’t need to study Buddhism to climb mountains. You don’t even need a philosophy, although you may end up with one. It isn’t easy to find an answer if we treat zazen as a spiritual practice. I have never felt that zazen is spiritual, and my teacher didn’t like to use the word “spiritual”. He was very pragmatic and totally down to earth. So I think that it can be helpful to look at zazen as a physical practice, and that’s what I want to do. 

You will find many writings and videos telling you how you should sit, giving you tips on keeping the right posture. Papers have been written on the benefits of meditation in controlling stress and managing anxiety. But having trained as an engineer, I want to take a more practical approach and look at the mechanism behind this practice that brings us into balance, and to look more closely at what balance means and why it seems to be so important. That will be my next topic.