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We might have already explored that the core of meditation is to be fully aware in the here and now. Silence and a quiet place are helpful to discover this awareness. What makes it so difficult to be here and now present when being at home with the family or at the working place? Can we explore it carefully together, not already knowing the answer or the answers? Let’s find out the hindrances as well as the wrong expectations how being aware in daily life should be.
Partner and family
Habits and automatic reactions grow mainly in permanently repeating situations of everyday routine. Meeting the same people in the same situations day in and day out as it is the usual situation for example at home is the ideal fertilizer to develop habits and automatic reactions. Everybody may look to his own situation. For all of us years have passed by when we developed our own way to get out of the bed, brush our teeth or prepare breakfast. Situations are repetitive. Even the topics of discussions could stay the same over years. We very well know the topics that “push the button” for our partners and create anger. Our partners just as well know our weak points and how to trigger an angry reaction. Usually we believe it is not worthy and important enough to care about. And we don’t want to spend much energy with unpleasant feelings or reactions, daily quarrel and disharmonic interaction. What happens, if we leave out the discussion of important or not important and include times when we become aware of some automatic behavior into our at home meditation? This does not mean to see an automatic reaction and immediately sit down to meditate. It is enough to stay where you are and look with awareness into what is going on directly at that instant. Not with the purpose to change anything but just to learn about oneself and the other human beings who act from habitual programs.
I remember a situation when I was getting up from bed early in the morning on a working day and found myself brushing teeth, when I suddenly discovered that heavily thinking was going on. In my imagination I was already at the working place, stuck with a lot of work. I was not able to do this work because I was still too tired. And a feeling of despair created tension in my body. To see all this automatic thinking interrupted the thought process. It became clear to me that there was no need to work being so tired as I felt at that moment. I remembered that usually I was much more awake later on when I really was at my working place. Only the discrepancy between the tired status I was in and the demand to be fully awaken and ready to work was creating this misery. I felt some relaxation and a thought arose: “I have not to work now. It’s still time to drink a coffee and become fully awaken.” The direct seeing of the situation in a moment of awareness had stopped a whole program which I remember had been going on many miserable mornings before.
Could we also take time to watch carefully how we speak to the people we are closest to? Could we recognize and wonder about our habitual ways and instead of anger look with wonder to the habitual ways our partner or our family members speak and act? What is important is not the content of what we see. Important is the fact that we see and become aware. It is the moment of no identification with our saying and acting when identification is replaced by open and innocent listening to all what is going on. How do we listen to a statement like: “All the time you forget to take out the garbage!” Could there be the interest to look at one’s own direct reaction to the feeling of opposition that comes up? There might be the impulse to respond harshly like: “Why I? Take it out yourself!” Could we look at all what is going on in such a situation and feel the hurt, which suddenly arises? What is this hurt? And especially: who is hurt? Are we interested in that or do we want to go on with our hurt and anger. It is really a challenge and quite difficult to look and listen right in these moments when they happen. But it is not too late even when we miss the direct opportunity. In case attention comes during remembrance of a situation, we can watch the whole thing from remembrance. There are always a few seconds of time to wonder and listen to what is going on even though the situation is recalled.
Direct insight stops a habitual reaction. Just look for yourself if this is true. Don’t believe me. And the stop of the habitual reaction in one person might trigger a stop in the habitual reaction of another person. It is not that wanting is needed to stop a habitual reaction. Direct insight at the moment where habitual reactions happen is enough to stop it. No doer is needed. Explore for yourself if a moment of meditative awareness in daily life can cut our habitual actions and prevent all the unhappiness and misery which usually arises out of it. Of course this is not once and for ever. As soon as the next program arises which is not coming into awareness, we are back to the old repetitive process. For a real change our habits have to become aware again and again until they slowly cease away.
At the working place
At work there is usually no chance to find a quiet place to meditate and we can not act form the assumption that our superiors at work even understand about meditation. Is it nevertheless possible to bring meditation to the working place? We have said meditation is direct awareness of what is just happening at this instance. Without judgment, without somebody who wants something out of the situation, just seeing what is. Could that happen at the working place? This question is not to be answered by yes or no. To find an answer it is necessary to continuously watch and observe the whole process as it unfolds day by day. How is it on your way to the working place? I remember a situation when I was driving my car and I was already late and had to face that I might not come in time to the working place. A feeling of stress was felt and I remember that I wanted to accelerate every car in front of me. I thought that they all drove too slowly. When standing at a crossing, a car in front of me didn’t start immediately at the green light. And at midst of the anger which arose, the scenery shifted. I don’t know who did it. Suddenly there was space and I observed myself as a person with a feeling of stress and anger and the fear to come late to the working place. What created this space? It was that the identification that made me a blind sufferer was interrupted. Suddenly the importance of this “me” was not anymore bigger than the importance of the driver in front of me or everything which was around. Stress and tension disappeared for a while and I could smile at this silly driver who was so engaged to come to the working place. After that it shifted from awareness to identification and back to awareness several times. When the fearful thought came up again: “Oh I could come too late!” the space collapsed and the pressure appeared again. And when the seeing came back, there was again relaxation. It was so clear. When there was unidentified seeing of the situation, fear and stress faded away and only the agitated body needed longer to calm down. Back to an automatic identification with the “me” who had fear to come late, stress and anger came back. If we are interested, we can explore the astonishing action of awareness in a multitude of personal situations. And from this point of view we understand better what sereneness means. It is a state of unidentified awareness.
Usually there is always somebody who is focused on his problems. Fear or anger goes hand in hand with this state. Only when awareness sheds light on the situation the view becomes wide. The importance of the “me” is melting away and fear and anger can calm down.
Have we ever looked at our co-workers and bosses from a not self-centered view? How is work life if we observe it from moment to moment in a non-self-centered way? We may see a contradiction between the usual task to concentrate to the work and a state of open awareness to all what goes on during work. Concentration is a process where everything which is not in the focus of concentration is kept out. We all might have observed that by writing a difficult text we can be so absorbed that only when finished we “wake up” from the concentration and find ourselves back at the working place in the front of the computer. Do we recognize that this is the moment when awareness comes back? Just now there is such a moment. I look up from writing, feel tension in my shoulders and take a view out of the window seeing snow on the trees and decent cars passing by with no audible noise, a moment of being fully alive. It is the wonder of being aware, the same wonder you might experience when you now look up from concentrated reading of the book and become aware of the present moment. Please, experiment with concentration and awareness and wonder how the one turns into the other while the wonder is only in the state of awareness. This brain is not constructed to be capable of fully concentrated work and at the same time open awareness to all what is, do you see that? There is no need to accept this statement. We can observe that it is so. But this does not mean that open awareness it not at all possible at the working place. How is it in the relation with people? It might again be that we have to concentrate to the work and discuss about difficult things so that we are completely absorbed in the topic. But is it always going like that? Observe how often parallel processes are going on in our brains. We discuss a factual topic and at the same time we observe judgmental thoughts about our co-worker meaning our concentration is reduced and at the same time a process of additional thinking with several associated emotions is going on. The moment when seeing this is a moment of awareness. It is a moment of true meditation in the middle of working. We usually would not call it meditation because we still have in mind that meditation is something that happens during sitting on a chair or cushion. In our little example something else is remarkable. In the moment of awareness the seeing is the doing. The fact that two processes happen which are disturbing each other is seen and this immediately changes the situation. You are free to switch to the personal level and discuss your personal issues with the person or you can decide to focus on the factual topic and go on with the work. The moment of awareness is giving the opportunity to stop the unhealthy dual process. In awareness we are really able to fully listen to a person whatever the topic is, personal or factual. Can one see the importance of the small moments of awareness in the daily work life? How they facilitate our social relationships to the co-workers and also improve the quality of our work? If you find true interest in the processes which go on in our mind, in a meditation hall, at home or at work, there will be a daily learning of how you function and moments of awareness become more and more important because you have experienced their potential.
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