Our everyday life is an opportunity for practice. Practice and life are one thing and, as we go about our daily tasks, responsibilities, interactions with people and so on, we can bring certain qualities in everything we do which can really benefit our practice and, of course, our life.
One of the most fundamental elements in our practice is being curious and having the intention to observe our resistances. What do we resist? What do we not accept? Why? As we get on with all our daily activities, we want to bring this quality of awareness and see. Perhaps, we start struggling when certain people interact with us. Perhaps, we can’t bear certain tasks; too boring, too difficult, too easy…. Simply noticing, we don’t need to force or change anything but becoming aware of our mental space and its content. Can we see through this content? Does this content have a fundamental truth or is it just hindering our getting on with our life? Of course, there are many useful information in this mental content and that curiosity can help us to understand and see what is what. Moment to moment, situation after situation, interaction after interaction, what am I learning about this mind and its content?
One practice we talked about was Nari Kiru, a very practical way to simply embrace what our days are requiring from us. “Nari” means “to become”, and “Kiru” means “cut off”. To become cut off from all of the other things which might distract us and just 100% be what we’re doing, be what we’re required to do nothing else. I gave the example of cooking, hoovering, typing, listening to people. Nari Kiru simply means when cooking, just cooking, when hoovering simply hoovering, no room for thinking about other things but simply embody hoovering and cutting off all the idle dualistic thinking that might easily occur when we are doing something. We might be hoovering the floor whilst thinking about which movie we want to watch later on. There is obviously a split there. The body is doing something in the present and the mind is busy somewhere else. When we can bring this quality of being 100% the action, this oneness, body and mind aligned, the entire universe is hoovering the floor; what or who else? Our practice is geared towards dissolving this sense of a very solid I into a more realistic sense of oneness, one infinite moment arising together, moment after moment. And here we introduced this idea of the Great Doubt which is another very important practice in Zen. What are we really? Can we help ourselves merging and just naturally flow with how things are? Our work as practitioners is to start doubting that we are something solid or simply becoming more and more curious about this sense of solidity. Simply starting doubting! What are we really? Keeping this Great Doubt alive! Walk with it! Cook with it! Hoover with it! Drive with it! Listen to others with it! Perhaps, after some time of doubting this seemingly solidity, we might start acting, interacting and responding to situations from a different space, different attitude, different seeing. Perhaps, we can just start flowing more naturally, whether we are working, relaxing, having fun or doing nothing. Who is working, relaxing, having fun or doing nothing? Simply have fun exploring! There is no right or wrong answer, as far as I got to!
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 