Past or present?

It’s very un-yamabushi to reflect deeply on the past. It’s very un-yamabushi to even reflect on the past. Yamabushi are supposed to live in the now. We are supposed to only think about what we are currently thinking about, and to do only what is directly in front of us.

However we are of course human. And more to the point, we live hansei hanzoku. We aren’t forever bound by these at times ridiculous concepts.

So it’s not unusual for us, or myself at least, to look back on what was. To reminisce about the past, and to think ‘those were simpler times’. There are many times where at the time I thought nothing of it, but now I think ‘what would I give to get back in that moment?’. To know what I know now, and to be in that moment one more time…

Which is all to say, if we think about the past so fondly, what does that mean we should be doing now?