Having a practice, any kind of introspective practice which involves, I guess, meditation and mindfulness is to give ourselves an opportunity to reflect on things, to get a chance to reflect on the nature of things and, also, to give ourselves a chance to reflect on the nature of our own behaviours, conscious behaviours and unconscious behaviours. It is a deliberate voluntary opportunity which we offer to ourselves. I find that, by itself, a very good reason to have a practice to go back to in any given situation I happen to experience.
It goes without saying that when we offer ourselves an opportunity to reflect on things, we get to see more and more clearly what makes us feel in a certain way and what makes us feel in another way. With this understanding and “knowledge”, I tend to think that we are more inclined to participate wholeheartedly with every single moment of this life experience; out of curiosity perhaps, out of the sheer desire to be more in “control” of our own emotions and feelings when these make us feel uncomfortable.
I guess that, it can happen many times that whilst doing something, which could be anything from chores around the house, driving to work, walking in nature, listening to someone, reading a book and so on, we happen to get lost into what is going on in our so-called mental sphere. Of course, this “being lost” in the mental sphere, does not allow us to fully participate in what we are really doing, we are not 100% aligned with the only experience we can really have which is the one with the present moment, with this situation, however we want to call it. We can call it reading, we can call it thinking, we can call it resting, we can call it painting…. How separate are we from the situation we happen to live? What is the distance between me and what I am experiencing? If anything, what creates this distance? Of course, we could visit and revisit the question, who are we really? I don’t have an answer to that but, meantime, I can be just reading, I can be just thinking, I can be just resting, I can be just painting, writing, speaking… wholeheartedly, totally, aligned. Just being what the situation requires, only.
As I happen to act in the present moment, I can choose to engage with whatever thinking process is going on in my mind or, I can choose to totally be present with the action I am performing. The difference is immense.
If I am doing something and I am caught in what is going on in my mind, I can easily say that I am imprisoned by my own story. I am allowing myself to believe in the stories which happen to appear in the mind. These are many times very convincing and very appealing. Judgements, ideas, memories, speculations; all these mental formations stand between us and what is really happening in the present moment. So, to arise with the situation at hand, to fully participate with what is going on is to remain solely focus on what we are doing. We are not trying to force absolutely anything; we are just making sure that our attention is in the situation only and not in the mind.
Out of habit, very easily we feel compelled to follow the formations in our own mind. We so strongly believe that we need to stay there, it is somehow our anchor. We have something to believe on, we have our opinions, our ideas, our preoccupations, our sense of identities and so on. All these things can easily take us away from what is really happening to us. Not an idea, not a speculation, an opinion but the actual direct experience of this very moment. I believe that with practice, we start becoming more accustomed to letting go of all our mental formations and more accustomed to be just in and with the situation at hand.
During my experience of studying Zen, I have come across the Japanese phrase, Nari Kiru which translates into English as becoming cut off. Becoming cut off from all the idle thinking that “kidnaps” us or, better, “kidnaps” our attention from what we are really doing. Cutting off from all the dualistic thinking and simply act, perform, do what you are doing. Nari Kiru is a very experiential manifestation of what we are really doing, moment to moment, nothing in between. How would it be to just walk when walking? How would it be to just listen when listening? How would it be to simply relax into the act of reading, writing, speaking. Not trying to force or squeeze something special out of what we do, but simply experience whatever action we happen to have to do from inside the action, 0 separation. Have fun experimenting Nari Kiru! Have fun simply expressing walking, running, chatting, chopping vegetables, painting, thinking, sweeping the floor, driving your car, typing and email…….
Zen Mindfulness Cambridge Zenways Italia 