3 Parables On Time and Presence
This reflection marks the closing of our month devoted to time. We have circled around it from many angles: its passing, its weight, its illusions, its gifts.
And now, as the month comes to an end, these stories offer us a reminder that time is a current to be entered.
The Calligrapher’s Hourglass
A modern tale capturing Taoist wu wei: the idea that trying to control time separates us from it, while surrendering allows transcendence.
A young student approached a renowned master of calligraphy, eager to learn the secret of perfect brushwork.
“Master,” he said, “I practice day and night, yet my characters lack the grace of yours. How can I master time to achieve such beauty?”
The old master smiled and placed an hourglass on the table between them. “Watch this sand fall,” he said. “Can you make it flow faster? Can you make it pause?”
“Of course not, Master. The sand flows as it will.”
“And yet,” said the master, picking up his brush, “when I write, I do not think of time passing or time remaining. I become the sand itself; flowing, falling, being.”
As he spoke, his brush moved across the silk with effortless grace, creating characters of extraordinary beauty. Each stroke seemed to emerge from silence itself.
“You try to capture time,” the master continued, “but time cannot be caught. When you stop chasing it and allow yourself to flow with its current, then your brush will dance, and true art will emerge.”
The student understood: mastery comes not from controlling time, but from dissolving into the eternal present of each gesture.
The Monk and the Broken Cup
An authentic teaching from Ajahn Chah illustrating impermanence (anicca). It transforms abstract philosophy into tangible experience, embodying the Japanese mono no aware: bittersweet appreciation of transient beauty.
A visiting student noticed that the old Zen master drank his tea with unusual reverence, cradling his simple clay cup as if it were precious beyond measure.
“Master,” the student asked, “why do you treat this ordinary cup with such care?”
The master set down his cup and smiled gently. “This cup is already broken,” he replied.
The student looked puzzled. “But Master, the cup appears whole to me.”
“Ah,” said the master, “but I see its true nature. One day; perhaps tomorrow, perhaps in a year; this cup will fall and shatter. A careless hand, a strong wind, the simple passage of time; any of these will return it to pieces.”
He lifted the cup again, inhaling the steam from his tea.
“Because I know this cup is already broken, I cherish each moment I have with it. I taste my tea more fully, I feel the warmth in my hands more deeply. When the day comes that it breaks, I will not mourn; I will smile, remembering all the beautiful moments we shared.”
The student began to understand: when we truly accept impermanence, every moment becomes precious, and attachment gives way to profound appreciation.
The Tea Master and the Sword
A classic Zen tale showing how true mastery comes from complete presence in the moment. The contrast between delicate tea ceremony and violent combat makes the lesson particularly striking.
In feudal Japan, a tea master found himself challenged to a duel by a samurai who had taken offense at some imagined slight. The tea master, knowing nothing of swordsmanship, was filled with despair.
Seeking counsel, he visited a renowned sword master. “I am to fight at dawn,” he explained. “I know I will die, but I wish to face death with honor. Please teach me to die like a samurai.”
The sword master studied him carefully. “Show me how you serve tea,” he requested.
Though puzzled, the tea master began his ritual. He moved with perfect composure, each gesture flowing into the next with natural grace. His movements were precise yet effortless, his attention complete and undivided. Time seemed to pause as he whisked the tea, poured it, and offered it with a deep bow.
“You need no instruction in swordsmanship,” the master declared. “Tomorrow, approach your opponent exactly as you approached this tea ceremony. Hold your sword as you held your whisk. Move with the same complete presence. Show the same total absorption in each moment.”
The next morning, the tea master faced his challenger with perfect calm, his sword held with the same reverence he showed his tea utensils. His complete presence and absolute fearlessness so unnerved the samurai that he apologized for his rudeness and withdrew without fighting.
The tea master had discovered that mastery in any art; whether tea, sword, or life itself; comes from the same source: complete presence in the eternal now.
We’re strange creatures, aren’t we?
We invented clocks to serve us, then became slaves to them. We create schedules to organize our lives, then feel guilty when life refuses to fit neatly into thirty-minute blocks. There’s something almost comical about how we’ve turned time; this flowing, natural phenomenon; into our greatest source of stress.
I’ve been thinking about this while reading some old stories, the kind that monks and tea masters used to tell. Not because I’m particularly spiritual, but because they seem to understand something about time that we’ve forgotten. They knew that fighting time is like trying to punch water; exhausting and ultimately pointless.
Take this story about a calligrapher who kept a sand timer on his desk, not to measure his work, but to remember that he wasn’t separate from time’s flow. When his students asked how to write faster, better, more efficiently, he’d point to the falling sand and say, “Can you make this hurry?” It sounds almost silly until you realize what he was getting at; that our best work happens when we stop wrestling with the clock and start moving with it instead.
Think about the last time you were completely absorbed in something you loved. Maybe you were cooking a complex meal, deep in conversation with a friend, or solving a puzzle that had captured your imagination. Time didn’t disappear exactly, but it stopped being the enemy. You weren’t checking your phone every few minutes or calculating how much you could accomplish before bed. You were just... there. Present.
Alive in the moment in a way that felt both effortless and deeply satisfying.
The strange thing is, we often accomplish more in these flowing states than when we’re frantically trying to maximize every minute. It’s as if time expands when we stop trying to compress it. The calligrapher knew this. His most beautiful characters emerged not from rushing or pushing, but from a kind of patient attentiveness that allowed each stroke to find its natural rhythm.
Another old story talks about a monk who treated his tea cup like it was already broken because he understood something we desperately try to avoid: nothing lasts forever. Everything we love, including ourselves, is temporary.
Our culture fights this reality with everything it has. We take vitamins to stay young, photograph every special moment, and build elaborate legacy projects. We act as if permanence were possible, then feel devastated when change inevitably arrives. But what if impermanence isn’t the problem? What if our resistance to it is?
The monk with the broken cup had figured this out. By accepting that his cup wouldn’t last forever, he could appreciate it completely while it was whole. He didn’t love it less because it was temporary; he loved it more deeply because he wasn’t wasting energy pretending it would last forever. Each sip of tea became precious precisely because there wouldn’t be infinite sips ahead.
This connects to something I notice about the people I most admire. They have a quality of presence that’s hard to describe but impossible to miss.
There’s an old Japanese story about a tea master who found himself challenged to a sword duel. He had no fighting skills, so he asked a swordsman for advice on dying with honor. Instead of teaching him to fight, the master asked him to prepare tea. As the tea master went through his careful ritual; measuring, whisking, pouring; the swordsman realized he already knew everything he needed. “Face your opponent exactly as you prepare tea,” he said. “With complete attention and no fear.”
The next morning, the tea master approached the duel with the same calm presence he brought to his tea ceremony. His complete lack of anxiety, his total focus on the present moment, unnerved his challenger so much that the man apologized and walked away.
When we bring our whole self to whatever we’re doing, something shifts. Not just in us, but in the situation itself. Problems that seemed impossible suddenly have obvious solutions. Conversations that felt stuck begin to flow. Work that felt overwhelming becomes manageable, even enjoyable.
The tea master simply brought the same quality of presence to a new situation that he’d cultivated in his familiar practice. That’s the real teaching here; that mastery isn’t about learning thousands of different skills, but about learning to be completely present to whatever skill the moment requires.
This matters now more than ever. We live in an attention economy designed to fragment our focus. Every app, every notification, every advertisement is competing for pieces of our awareness. The ancient practices of presence aren’t just spiritual luxuries; they’re practical necessities for anyone who wants to think clearly, love deeply, or create meaningfully.
But here’s what I find encouraging: presence isn’t complicated. It doesn’t require special training or equipment. It just requires choosing, again and again, to be where we are instead of where we think we should be.
To listen to the person in front of us instead of planning what we’ll say next. To taste our food instead of scrolling through news while eating. To feel our feet on the ground instead of living entirely in our heads.
Time keeps moving whether we’re present to it or not. Truth is that we have all the time we need, precisely because we’ve stopped wasting it on wanting to be somewhere else. Because we’re fully alive to this moment, eternity is exactly how long this moment feels.
With Gratitude.
Thank you💜
Thank you for this wonderful example of presence.