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---Nothing Happens Next
 
If next is an illusion, how is it that we can focus on it?
If now is all there is, how do we miss it?
If now is all there is, how do we not miss it?
 
In Zen Practice, we don’t sit around on round black cushions, trying to figure things out. In Zen Practice, we sit on round black cushions, facing a blank wall, eyes softly focused, counting the breath, having an experience of the nature of now/next.
 
As we sit, we may notice 
thoughts about the future, “Eggs for breakfast?”
…count of one
thoughts about the past, “Did I get eggs at the store yesterday?” 
…count of one
gaps between thoughts.
…count of one
(absence)
…count of two
(absence)
…count of fourteen
thoughts about the past, “Where was I?”
Bell rings.
We get up, bow, and get on with breakfast, 
unaware, lost in the illusion of next
or 
aware, here, now, enjoying the flavor of scrambled eggs on hot toast.
 
Why do we prioritize training to live Now?
Screwtape:
The humans live in time but our Enemy destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity. Of the present moment, and of it only, humans have an experience analogous to the experience which our Enemy has of reality as a whole; in it alone freedom and actuality are offered them. 
 
Why is it so easy to miss Now?
Screwtape:
Our business is to get them away from the eternal, and from the Present. With this in view, we sometimes tempt a human (say a widow or a scholar) to live in the Past. But this is of limited value, for they have some real knowledge of the past and it has a determinate nature and, to that extent, resembles eternity. It is far better to make them live in the Future. Thoughts about the Future inflame hope and fear. Also, it is unknown to them, so that in making them think about it we make them think of unrealities. In a word, the Future is, of all things, the thing least like eternity. It is the most completely temporal part of time — for the Past is frozen and no longer flows, and the Present is all lit up with eternal rays.
 
And the consequences of a focus on Next?
Screwtape:
But we want a man hag-ridden by the Future haunted by visions of an imminent heaven or hell upon earth — ready to break the Enemy's commands in the present if by so doing we make him think he can attain the one or avert the other — dependent for his faith on the success or failure of schemes whose end he will not live to see. We want a whole race perpetually in pursuit of the rainbow's end, never honest, nor kind, nor happy now, but always using as mere fuel wherewith to heap at the altar of the future every real gift which is offered them in the Present.
 
And so we practice 
breathing,
paying attention,
noticing,
inhabiting the timeless dimension of no-thinking
as we sit, walk, work, talk
and then, no Now, 
we are happy, grateful and kind.
 
Gasshō
ashwini