Today’s exercise could be called Personal Feng Shui. To me this is a perfectly logical transition. If our surroundings influence our thoughts and feelings, why wouldn’t our thoughts and feelings influence our environment? One of my favourite Zen proverbs actually addresses the connection between thoughts and actions:
- Zen Proverbs
What it means:
When do you truly feel alive? Is it in the small, everyday, repetitive moments of life (doing the dishes, making another meal, taking out the trash, driving to work)? Or is it the bigger events, those we wait for (the weekend, our vacation, a trip, a course, a family gathering)? And what happens when those long awaited events come? Do we fully appreciate them? What about when they are over? Do we cherish the memories fully? How long before we begin to turn our attention to the next big event?
In truth I believe we need a balance of both: those rare and special events we plan and look forward to, and the everyday mundane moments of life. In the Zen proverbs there is nobility in the mundane, every day tasks, so the change I would make is to learn to live the everyday mundane life as something noble. Sacred even. Because that is what it is. Each moment is a rare and special event that is here, and then gone, fleeting and ephemeral but also with the potential of substance and significance. Now is really all we have.
And if we are not awake in the everyday small moments, the mind does not get practice in knowing how to fully appreciate the large events when they happen, because inevitably the imagining, planning and wishing is more powerful than the event itself, which is bound to be composed of moments much like the everyday ones and as we all know, it is easy to find disagreeable things.
Our last vacation for example — a cruise to Alaska — began and ended with waiting: waiting for buses, waiting on buses, then standing in a long line waiting to get our boarding passes. Hours of waiting, feeling bored, warm, inconvenienced, getting cranky. Onboard there was a queue to get meals; in the informal dining areas it was often difficult to find a table. We began to play a ‘beat the line-up game’ trying to avoid crowds. The trip was wonderful, don’t get me wrong. But I remember what irritated me, and this is where an attitude change, a ‘carry water, chop wood’ mind-set comes into service, when we allow ourselves to be in every moment without judging it.
Exercise
What would change if you lived your life fully in the moment — all moments – without judging some as better than others, appreciating all for what they are, of finding what is unique in this moment which comes but once?
How many times today can you bring a sense of the sacred into whatever you are doing ? If you could make this into an ongoing practice, what effect would this have on your life? How would your environment change as a result?
Some people believe this is a pie-in-sky mindset; that when something truly terrible happens it means searching for what is good or positive about it. But it is not meant to deny what happens or what we feel as a result of it. Whether that is feelings of bordedom, dread, grief, anger, remorse, fear, pain; or of joy, excitement, exuberance, pleasure, love. The object is that we allow ourselves to fully experience them without wishing them away – wishing only for the emotions we call positive. An enlightened mind does the laundry and the dishes with awareness, being fully awake. Does this make sense? I welcome your opinion on this.
© Deborah Redfern 2010. All rights reserved.
