Zen story: The time waster
By emptychair
@innertalks (23736)
Australia
July 4, 2022 12:59am CST
The old Zen master, Ruskirf Zebrsoke, had one student, who, to all intents and purposes, used to like to waste time, arguing the point just for the sake of arguing the point.
The Zen master told him off one day, when he had spent another hour of the master's time, endlessly picking straws in the haybale of truth that the master had given him to consume, in the one sitting.
"Just consume the truth, without chewing it endlessly first,"
he had said to his student.
"You are wasting time, chewing over stuff that should already be sustaining you."
The student simply looked at his master, and said:
"No time is ever wasted, unless you are the one to see it in that way."
The master took some extra time now, to answer his student here again too.
"Can we waste time?"
he asked the question.
Then, he answered his own question, quickly.
"Anytime spent not loving is wasting time. Yes, we can waste time."
"It is the same when you spend too much endless time asking questions with your mind. You are wasting time here too."
"Just start living a totally loving life, and the endless questions will all be answered by love, within God's good time. For God is love, and love is God. There is no more to it than that."
Photo Credit: The photo used in this article was sourced from the free media site, pixabay.com
"There's no good way to waste your time. Wasting time is just wasting time."
Helen Mirren, the British actress said this of wasting time, and I think that she is pretty right there too.
5 people like this
5 responses
@yanzalong (19091)
• Indonesia
4 Jul 22
When you failed to accomplish 2 hours ' work, this means you wasted your time. Am I right?
3 people like this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
4 Jul 22
Thanks. That is a good point to note, as it is then a double waste of time, so to speak too.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28371)
• Singapore
4 Jul 22
Even if we are chewing the cud, it is not wasting time if done for the right purposes.
Working at cross purposes, arguing for the sake of arguing, is a waste of time.
In the name of democracy and freedom, opposition political parties oppose those that they wanted to implement when they were in power. That is self-defeating and works against the interest of the common folks who hope against hope the tide will turn soon.
Individually, we can make amends, and make course corrections, but collectively we hit the wall as politics is non-love in the way it is played out.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
4 Jul 22
Yes, chewing over stuff sometimes brings us an insight, not gotten otherwise, as long as we are not just procrastinating, and giving ourselves indigestion instead. We need to be honest with ourselves then.
Yes, politics is usually both non-love, and dishonesty too, unless we have someone like Gandhi, or Nelson Mandela, leading the way.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
5 Jul 22
@Shiva49 Selflessness is alien in a lot of other fields too.
There are many sports people, and business people too, who fit into that category too.
Yes, sometimes with sunglasses, they are resting on the top of our head, and we look for them elsewhere then too.
1 person likes this
@Shiva49 (28371)
• Singapore
5 Jul 22
@innertalks Selflessness is alien to most politicians.
Those types weaken the democratic system and they make a mockery of hard-earned freedom. The whole process works against ordinary folks.
Age also plays a part as even for the fit as fiddle types, age takes its toll.
One lady was complaining about how her now senile husband keeps searching but he does not know what is looking for!
And also a few who look frantically for their glasses while wearing them!
1 person likes this
@ihasaquestion (8273)
•
4 Jul 22
That's right.. we are always chasing time. This should stop being wasted.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
4 Jul 22
Yes, it is a bit hard to define sometimes, wasted time.
As rushing, not to "waste" too much time on a job, could be said to be more cutting corners, and which is not a good idea if quality work is the goal, either, (and quality work should usually always be the goal too).
Quality should mostly always outweigh time considerations in our endeavours.
There are exceptions to every rule, though.
1 person likes this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
4 Jul 22
@ihasaquestion Sometimes hard work is stupid work though, and we work hard, without thinking first of the better way to do things. We waste time trying to work hard, without meaning to, because of lack of forethought.
For example, if we are chopping a pile of wood, and we work hard without stopping to sharpen our axe, as it is needed to do so, we will work very hard, but waste a lot of time, chopping harder with a blunt axe, then too.
1 person likes this
@ihasaquestion (8273)
•
4 Jul 22
@innertalks Yes, I agree.. as also to hard work is wasting time with good results.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
4 Jul 22
It might be, most of the time, because procrastinating is putting off what needs to be done right now, and doing something less important now instead.
Procrastinators delay what needs to be done right now, so this is usually wasting time too, I would say.
My definition above for wasting time was doing anything other than what we are meant to be doing, so in this definition, procrastinating is wasting time, as we do not respect and love ourselves enough to do what we should be doing, the most loving thing in that situation.
2 people like this
@innertalks (23736)
• Australia
5 Jul 22
@Adie04 Yes, that's true.
We do need to value time, and not think that we have so much of it that to fritter it away does not matter.
2 people like this
@Adie04 (17405)
•
5 Jul 22
@innertalks I agree. And if I may say, procrastinate means they don't appreciate the time and rather do other things than the important one.
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