Replacing just a few key negative habits with a few positive habits can be the difference between being mostly unhappy and being happy almost all of the time.
Tynan
It is a New Year in our man made tradition of calendars, clocks and schedules. According to Brother Phap dung of Plum Village, it is also a time to examine our habits, to look deeply into them to determine if they are skillful or not skillful. We have a lot of unskillful habits, don't we?
Habit of Over -Thinking
Some of our habits include what he refers to as NST or non-stop thinking. When is the last time, you were aware that you were not thinking?
Habit of Doing and Being Busy
Our habit list also includes our busy doing. Most of us have been conditioned to be busy...in a world where efficiency, or at least the appearance of it, is so very important. We have been trained to rush, to do more than one activity at a time, and to keep moving. I doubt if any of us know exactly what direction we are moving in and for what purpose but like fish in a frantic school we keep flapping our fins, caught in the momentum of busyness.
Habit of Reacting
We also have a habit of reacting to what happens around us. When an external stimuli enters our sense perception we automatically slip into reactivity...judging if it is good or bad, right or wrong, should be or shouldn't be. We react by reaching out to grasp and cling to the things we judge as right, wrong and should be and by pushing away the "bad, wrong and shouldn't be." Br Phap Dung suggest a possible meditation to help reduce reactivity. It would involve having a group sit around a perfectly clean table with a glass of orange juice in the center. While the group is sitting and concentrating on that orange juice, he suggests having someone tip the orange juice unexpectedly over. Most of are conditioned to perceive and judge the spilling of the orange juice as something, "bad, wrong, shouldn't be" and would react with a pile of unpleasant and uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, words or even actions. Would we not? As it is spilling and making a mess all over the clean table...the meditative goal would be to not react or even maybe react in a positive way with, "Oh wow cool! Look at the flower formation the orange juice is making." This may help to break our habit of reactivity.
Habit of Scheduling and To-Do-Lists
Another habit, most of us are so conditioned to make a part of our lives is our our addiction to routines, schedules, calendars and clocks. In a productivity programmed culture, the "to-do-list" is oh so important for most of us. We have a tendency to feel pretty smug when we accomplish all those things on our lists and we also tend to beat ourselves up when we don't. We have to remember that the expectations of the "to-do-list" are man made, as is the clock and the calendar. As is time actually. Observe nature and her rhythms...she doesn't go by a clock or a calendar and she certainly doesn't drag a to-do-list behind her does she. If we could mimic her...which we are actually a part of and are meant to do...using light, sun and moon, and change of season to move us, rather than be dependent on a hundred scribbles on a piece of paper or a big red circle on some calendar page...then we would be much healthier. Wouldn't we?
Electronic Habit
Another habit our culture has developed is our addiction to electronics. When is the last time you left home without your phone and how panicky did you get when you realized you did? We will not perish without our phones but we have developed an attachment to them as if they were our life lines? They are not our life lines. In fact, they get in the way of Life. It has become much easier to text someone a little heart or happy face than it has to embrace them with a hug or a genuine- in -your -face smile. We are, after all, too busy for all that face to face stuff, aren't we? Busy doing what? Swimming around in a school of fish that are just going in circles? How has that become more important than human connection? Our phones and electronic gadgets are just another way of keeping us swimming rather than living in the moment. You get that right?
The Need For Story
We are also very habituated to the need for story. Our personal stories and our collective stories are how we identify ourselves to and with the other fish we are swimming round with. These ideas of where we came from, and who we are by the bodies we are in, the roles we play, what we own or don't own, our beliefs and ideologies etc. Come on...it is all just story...more thought to add to already overloaded minds.
Breaking Free of Our Habits
Our habits take us away from connection to the bodies we are in, to the moment. Do you think that maybe 2022 would be as good of a "calendar time" as any to start dismantling our habitual tendencies...just a bit even?
Maybe we could begin observing our minds to determine just how busy they are. Maybe we could start focusing on the pauses between thoughts and make extending those pauses our goal.
Maybe we could practice slowing down, just a bit. Observe first, how you and the rest of the world are moving...then make a commitment to catch yourself "rushing" and when you do ...slow down. Become mindful of each step hitting the earth, each foot being lifted into the air before the next step. Become mindful how you brush your teeth, wash the dishes or open a door. Slow down enough to notice the movement of the body and the breath. The breath is a great way to bring us back into the body and into the moment. So is a yoga practice.
Let's stop doing for just short periods of the day. Let's see what stillness and quiet feels like. Let's try meditating. What can it hurt?
What if we were more mindful of how we reacted to external events, how we judged, how we grasped and how we pushed away? What if we began to practice non -reactivity in little ways with little things like spills?
We could put away our to-do-lists on some days couldn't we? Sure we have to plan at times but do we have to plan and organize every single moment of our day? Do we need to heap so many expectations into them? Lets just limit, at least, how many things we plan and put on our lists. Let's be kinder to ourselves by giving some space to just be.
Have you tried disconnecting from your phone for a day? That is a challenge I offer you. Put it in a cupboard and leave it there for one day. I guarantee it will not kill you. And then knock on the door of the person you usually text ( COVID restrictions considered) and give them a smile or a hug in person!
Then maybe we could let go of our stories a bit...go beneath them and their discriminating borders and see that who we really are has no need for story or separation. It has no need to swim in circles either. It just is.
Anyway, a long ramble.Thanks Brother Phap Dung for your insight. Here is hoping everyone's 2022 is one where we break free of at least some of our habits!
All is well. .
Plum Village/Brother Phap Dung (December 31, 2017) New Year's Eve Talk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6P-NrCNUSJU (not sure if this is the link to the same video?)
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