Dr. Jay Forrest

It is very easy in life to lose perspective. The non-essentials easily overpower the essentials. The things that truly matter are pushed to the back burner, and we get caught up in what does not matter.

Nothing puts things into perspective more quickly than remembering that we will die. It helps us set priorities. It reminds us what is important in life. It is not things, it is not money—it is the people who benefit from our lives.

When you realize that tomorrow may be your last day, you live today more fully. You treat others as you wish to be treated. You become more kind, more compassionate, and more willing to connect with those around you.

Life is short, and we are not going to get more time. Today, you are one day closer to your death. Realizing this helps you keep perspective. You need to stay focused on the goal: to become more like Ultimate Reality—more loving, more kind, and more mindful.

When we begin to talk about spiritual things, we can use Day language or Night language. By Day language, I mean literal truth. Literal language says what is actually the case in plain English. Night language uses metaphors and myths to convey something of the nuance, something beyond the literal truth.

Night language can be very useful. It can point to something that we really have problems putting into words. Metaphors can catch nuances but literal language cannot. Myths can help us feel the depth of a story that cannot be conveyed by literal words.

But the danger becomes when we use Night language and we interpret it as Day language. In other words, when we take a myth or a metaphor and take it literally. Many people do this with the Bible, and end up with all kinds of crazy ideas. That’s the danger with holy books: we elevate human words to Divine level, and create nothing but division and confusion.

Socrates once said that the unexamined life is not worth living. This is not usually explained, but I think what he meant is that a life that is not purposely lived is not worth living. It is just existing.

When you realize how many people go through life on autopilot, you begin to see that mindfulness is actually a superpower. It allows you to return to your life. It allows you to be right here, right now.

I don’t know if you’ve heard of NPCs—non‑player characters in video games. They go through the motions of being alive, but they are actually just programs. There is no consciousness behind them. Many people are like that.

This is why it’s so important to bring mindfulness into your life: to be aware of what you’re doing while you’re doing it. When you do the dishes, you are present while doing the dishes. When you chop wood, you just chop wood. To be fully present in the very moment you breathe. After all, you are not going to get more days in your life, but you can get more life in your days.

We don’t realize how many of our limitations are imposed by our thinking, not by anything external. It is really not people or the environment that limits us, but we ourselves.

This is illustrated in what Suzuki Roshi calls the lack of a beginner’s mind: “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.”

The problem is not that we know so much, but that we think we know when we actually do not. The expert becomes locked into a particular perspective and looks at things from only one point of view. The beginner has the advantage of choosing a different perspective, coming at the same thing from a different angle.

The Dunning–Kruger effect tells us that the less we know about a subject, the more likely we are to assume we know more than we actually do. In other words, the less we know, the more we think we know. The opposite is also sometimes true: the more we know, the more we realize how much we do not know. The secret of a beginner’s mind is to meet everything as if for the first time.

I really like this old story about a Zen master.

A professor who wanted to discover what Zen was made an appointment to meet him. One morning he arrived at the Zen master’s house and was invited to sit down. As they sat, the professor went on and on about this theory and that theory, this hypothesis and that hypothesis.

The Zen master asked the professor if he would like some tea. The professor said yes. The master began to pour tea for him. The cup reached the top, and the Zen master continued to pour. The tea began to spill all over the table unto the floor.

The professor could not hold back any longer: “What’s wrong with you? Don’t you know that the cup is full?”

The Zen master replied, “Just like the cup. You are full of knowledge and information, and there is no room to add anything more. I cannot teach you Zen when you are so full of opinions. First empty the cup, and then return to me.”

Everyone says they want to know the truth, but they want the truth to be comfortable. But the reality is that you will know the truth, and the truth will make you very uncomfortable.

I still remember the day I said I wanted to know the truth, no matter the cost. I have paid that price over and over again. The truth has been hard to come by, and it has cost me everything.

So you have to ask yourself: do you really want to know? Do you really want to know how the world really is? Do you really want to know how messed up we are as a human race? Do you really want to know how far you still have to go?

It is only when we are ready to accept the unacceptable that the truth arrives. It does not come all at once. It is like the sunrise: the light begins to shine, brighter and brighter, until at one point you can no longer look directly at the sun. The same is true of the truth. When you see the illusion, the world will never look the same, and the things that you once enjoyed will lose their allure.