Zen of Everyday Activity

Whether we know it or not, we have a lot of responsibility and activity, in our week-to-week and day-to-day lives. I myself have commitments to my Buddhist practice, family, projects, work, requests from friends and demands from a few other areas. It's incredibly easy to go into "planning" mode and constantly projecting into the "next" thing that's coming up and fail to arrive in the present moment.

Where my mind goes, when I go into hyper-planning mode, I have no idea. The only thing is that I'm sure of is that I am lost, lost, lost to the present moment. I may be physically present, but it can result in being mentally and emotionally unavailable.

Within our various tasks and responsibilities, it's really important to learn how to be skillfully present, alert and attentive to what's directly present, without drifting off. For me, this practice is exactly like practicing zazen (sitting in unification mentally and physically).

With whatever activity that I'm engaged in, I make the effort to be mindful and harmonize with it. When I take an inhalation and make an exhalation, my breath does not belong to someone or something else. I am the breath. Instead of coming to a activity or task and looking at it as "Out-there," I practice at removing the invisible walls that might cause me to think or feel that the activity is a burden. When I spin off, just come back to the activity that is in front of me. We don't need to cast admonishments or be unfriendly with ourselves, just return to the present activity.

Really, Really, really practicing arriving in the now... the present moment... We and the activity are one being. We and the activity have no distance. We and the activity have no gaps. We and the activity have no time. We and the activity, if we are genuinely harmonized are as my teacher states, "Zero."

In this way we can learn a great deal about our mind. In this way we have an opportunity to move beyond what we think we know and deeply engage and be the "experience," Itself. It is the Zen of everyday activity.

Unify Your Everyday Heart,

Jaye Seiho Morris, Curator
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