YAKUSAN ASKED A MONK, "WHERE DO YOU COME FROM?"
"FROM NANSEN," WAS THE REPLY.
"HOW LONG WERE YOU THERE?" YAKUSAN CONTINUED.
"FROM LAST WINTER TO SUMMER," REPLIED THE MONK.
"THEN YOU MUST HAVE BECOME A GOOD OX," COMMENTED YAKUSAN.
THE MONK SAID, "THE THING IS, I WAS THERE, BUT I DIDN'T EVEN GO TO THE DINING HALL."
"BUT YOU CANNOT GET BY JUST THROUGH BREATHING THE WIND!" YAKUSAN COMMENTED.
"IT WAS NOT THAT BAD, OSHO," SAID THE MONK. "THERE IS SURELY A MAN WHO WILL HOLD A SPOON FOR ME."
ON ANOTHER OCCASION, YAKUSAN WAS RETURNING TO HIS TEMPLE WITH A BUNDLE OF FIREWOOD WHEN A MONK ASKED HIM, "WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?"
YAKUSAN REPLIED, "I'VE GOT FIREWOOD."
THE MONK POINTED TO YAKUSAN'S SWORD AND SAID, "IT MAKES THE SOUND `TAP-TAP'. WHAT IN THE WORLD IS IT?"
AT THIS THE MASTER UNSHEATHED THE SWORD AND ASSUMED A WARRIOR'S STANCE.

He stood like a warrior.
What is Yakusan intending to show to the monk?
First, the monk has asked, "Where have you been?" He has not answered that, because what is past is past, and what is future is future. They are not the concern of Zen.
The concern of Zen is the present moment. You can ask a question about the past, but you cannot distract the master from the present. So he did not answer where he had been; on the contrary, he simply said, "I HAVE GOT FIREWOOD. Just in the present, right now, you can see the firewood and you can understand where I must have been -- collecting firewood. But that has not to be said. That is a past thing. I simply show you the present. And the present implies the past, and in a subtle way it implies the future, but nothing can be said about that. That which is gone, is gone, and that which has not come yet, has not come yet."
We can live only in the present moment. That is our only time. One never knows what is going to happen in the next moment.
Zen does not talk about past and future. Its whole concentration is in the now and here.