There’s a classical teaching about living life to the full which says to embrace each experience as if it is the very first time you are having this experience (which is true…..every experience you have today is for the first time). This is quite like the mindfulness or awareness teachings which tell us to be fully present, as fully aware as possible, as much as we can. This, in fact, is the essence of “heroes not zombies” – it’s about waking up, living consciously and not on autopilot all the time.
There’s another teaching which says to embrace each experience as if it is the very last time you will be having this experience (which is also true……you will never have exactly the experiences you have today ever again).
I find both these teachings come to mind as the sun rises and the sun sets (or Earth Falls and Earth Risings?). Have you ever seen the movie, “City of Angels”? (an American re-make of Wim Wenders, “Wings of Desire”) There are beautiful scenes there where the angels all gather on the beach each morning to experience the sunrise. To be quite honest, I’m not out and about experiencing sunrises all that often, but the other end of the day, sunset, is an equally entrancing event.
If you are ever somewhere where you have an unobstructed view of the sun setting, you’ll likely see that you aren’t experiencing the sunset alone. I was lucky the other day to watch some spectacular sunsets from Biarritz, watching the sun sinking below the horizon of the Atlantic Ocean (and, no, I didn’t see any green rays)
The play of the light on the waves and the wet sand were amazing…..
Live life fully today – living every single experience for the first time and the last time.
Heroes Not Zombies 