Resting while you work

Eleven years ago, our Monday night book group was reading Sabbath by Wayne Muller. I came across some notes from that group recently.

One night a member of the group said that at the end of a meditation retreat, she complimented the cooks for such great food. The reply: “the food was good partly because we rested while we worked.”

Another person then recalled a story from a guide on how to climb a mountain: take a slight pause (rest) between each step. In doing so, and others found they found that they were less tired than they normally were after a long hike.

That led to a discussion about the possibility of resting while we work. So we decided to explore this idea.

Following are some of the gems from that exploration!
Relishing snacks of rest
When cleaning the house, one member found herself dancing through the house while dusting, and then dancing from one chore to another.

Being restful in work
“I used to do a lot of thinking while washing dishes but I felt tired afterwards. Then I tried paying attention to sensations while washing dishes. Now I don’t feel tired afterwards.”

Work as rest
“I used to hate to do the dishes. Then I tried paying attention to what I noticed while doing the dishes. Now I love to do them and I feel rested afterwards.”

The dance of restful work
This person explored the notion of resting while raking the leaves. Her initial thought: “This is a big job. I’ll rest when I get to a certain spot.” Then she decided to taking to time to rest whenever she felt it. She found a feeling of so much joy in looking around at the beauty in the scenery. She was surprised to find herself finished before it was time to pick up her daughter.

Putting work to rest
“I put all my ‘to dos’ in one room. This enabled me to do only what I could do. Such a relief! I went back to the other room and found that many of the 'to dos' didn’t need to get done after all.”

Advice from meditation teachers and a music teacher
I recall several of my meditation teachers talking about ‘resting in the breath.’ Another teacher advised me to "rest in the not knowing."

Work and rest are like notes and the silence between notes in music. The silence (rest) between the notes is essential for the song to form. Otherwise it’s just noise.

Several quotes about busyness and rest
"A successful life has become a violent enterprise.
We make war on our own bodies, pushing them beyond their limits;
war on our children, because we cannot find enough time to be with them when they are hurt and afraid, and need our company;
war on our spirit, because we are too preoccupied to listen to the quiet voices that seek to nourish and refresh us;
war on our communities, because we are fearfully protecting what we have, and do not feel safe enough to be kind and generous;
war on the earth, because we cannot take the time to place our feet on the ground and allow it to feed us, to taste its blessings and give us thanks." Wayne Muller, Sabbath

"To commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to the violence of modern time." Thomas Merton

"We have developed an inner psychology of speed, of saving time and maximizing efficiency, which is getting stronger by the day. " Guy Claxton, British psychologist, 2002

"We are called human beings, but we have become human doings." Anonymous

Some gems from Sabbath by Wayne Muller
Muller makes the point that we often don’t realize how tired we are. When you meditate, listen to your body, mind, and spirit. After the meditation, explore relevant thoughts that come up. For example, do you push away the signs of fatigue for fear that if you really pay attention, you will realize how tired you are?

Reflect on the word ‘rest.’
• What does that word mean to you, really?
• What rests (refreshes) you?
• What intentional activities or rituals do you have in your life that give you rest?
• What keeps you from resting more?

Make a choice to find rest and quiet each day, using the metaphor of putting a fence around the flowers to protect them.

For at least 5 minutes each day, focus on paying attention to the breath, including the rhythm of the breath. Ask these two questions and listen for what comes up:
What do you notice about the rhythm of rest in your breathing?
What do you notice about the rhythm of breath in your body?

Some other explorations to try on your own
• Try resting for moments during the day.
• Rest in an activity. For example, eat a snack mindfully.
• Give yourself rest from interruptions. For example, don’t answer the phone during dinner.
• Do something in a leisurely manner: make a meal slowly, take a walk with someone, eat an ice cream cone and savor each sensation!
• When you get to work, rest for a couple minutes before getting out of the car. Do the same when getting home from work.

Begin to habituate rest as your personal sanctuary. Enjoy each moment!

Bend not break

Several weeks ago my wife and I were walking on one of Keene’s walking/bike paths. We paused for a few moments on a bridge. She noticed a tree that, in some storm, had been bent over and now its top was in the river. A powerful image of ‘bend not break.’ Click here to see the picture.

There are two other messages in that picture. If you look closely, you can see, in the background, another smaller tree that is also bent! The other message is that I have been on this path on my bicycle probably hundreds of time, but never noticed the tree!

I have long enjoyed the writings John Muir, Henry David Thoreau, and others bout learning from the Nature: bamboo is one of the strongest woods and is often referred to when talking about ‘bend but not break.’ From Bruce Lee: “Notice that the stiffest tree is most easily cracked, while the bamboo or willow survives by bending in the wind.”

So what helps us to bend instead of breaking during these storms?

Presence and not turning away
Terry Tempest Williams in an interview with Krista Tippett about her book Finding Beauty in a Broken World: “You know, a good friend of mine said, ‘You are married to sorrow.’ And I looked to him and I said, ‘I am not married to sorrow. I just choose not to look away.’ And I think there is deep beauty in not averting our gaze, no matter how hard it is, no matter how heartbreaking it can be. You know, watching prairie dogs shot, standing before the mass grave of 30,000 human beings [from the Rwanda genocide]…I think it is about presence, bearing witness. I used to think bearing witness was a passive act. I don't believe that anymore. I think that when we are present, when we bear witness, when we do not divert our gaze, something is revealed. The very marrow of life. We change. A transformation occurs. A consciousness shift.”

Powerful words. Worth reading again and pausing to notice inside…

Not turning away is a theme I have encountered in so many places.

Last month I referred to the legend of Krishna and how the key to his survival was not turning away from the demons.

Many years ago I was leading a body scan meditation at Keene State College. When I got to the back, I said “this is a place where some people feel discomfort or even pain. If this is happening, see if you can not hate the pain.” At the end of the class, one participant said that she had gone to the gym the day before. She was out of shape, so she did a rigorous workout, and now she ached all over. Just before I made the comment about not hating the pain, she was miserable. However, with those words she was able to let go of hating the pain. All of a sudden it was just sensations. She was no longer miserable. And she was amazed. Such amazing things can happen when we don’t turn away.

Back to learning from Nature
I remember seeing eggs in a cactus wren bird nest when we lived in the desert. I visited the nest regularly, noticing the baby birds when they hatched and as they grew. One day I saw one of the babies making possibly its first flight back to the nest. Afterwards I realized that the bird doesn’t get a second chance. If it doesn’t do it right, it dies. And that was terrible…and it is how the natural world works. A friend told me of a similar experience but not with the same happy ending. She was watching two birds finding food for their young and feeding them. Once when both birds went away, a hawk swooped down and plucked the babies from the nest.

This is how the natural world works. Can you accept it? Can you not turn away?

Can you accept yourself? Can you not turn away from the parts of yourself that you don’t like?

Back to finding beauty in a broken world
When Tami Simon (from Sounds True) was interviewing Terry Tempest William, she talked about not turning away and asked Terry “how do you do that?”

Terry ‘s response was “How do you not turn away?”

Then she elaborated: “The word that comes back to my mind again and again is being present. If you are present, then there is no past, as you well know. And there is no future. You are there. And whether it is being with a family member who is dying, you are present with them. You are breathing. And in that breathing there is this commitment and communion to that breath. Presence. And you don't look away. It is this shared gaze.”

Three Methods for Working with Chaos by Pema Chodron
This article appears in the latest issue of Lion’s Roar and is excerpted from her book, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times. Pema writes that in her tradition they do not exorcise demons, but rather they treat them with compassion. The advice she passes on is: “Approach what you find repulsive, help the ones you think you cannot help, and go to places that scare you.”

Again, not turning away. This is true for what we find repulsive in the ‘outer’ world and in the ‘inner’ world: those parts of us that we don’t like, that we fear, that we turn away from.

A reminder that this is not an absolute maxim. Toward this end and going from the sacred to the sublime, I offer a quote from Kenny Rogers: “Know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, and know when to run.”

Explore in the moment now
This notion of bend but not break can easily become just words, so I invite you to pause for a few moments. Where do you feel broken or possibly breaking right now? Breathe with those images and feelings…..See if you can allow yourself to be with the pain by witnessing the pain. What do you notice?………….

The Upside of Sadness
Steve Hickman writes about not turning away from sadness in this article which you can read by Googling the title. “It’s never fun, but over the course of a lifetime, sadness visits us all. What if instead of resisting, you could welcome it in and listen to what it has to say?... Locating the arising of sadness in the body (it is different in everyone) gives us a kind of steady place to direct our kind attention and begin to alter our relationship with sadness. The practice of mindfulness is about being present to every moment, not just the ones that are pleasant or neutral. In fact, going into the darker, more uncomfortable places—the ones we usually try to avoid—may yield powerful insights, and may sharpen our mindfulness and deepen our compassion, both toward ourselves and others.”

Two other metaphors
Both metaphors haven been helpful when I realize I am resisting, turning away, and suppressing.

The first metaphor is balance. However, its not like the balance point, which is static balance, but rather dynamic balance which is “the ability of an object to balance whilst in motion or when switching between positions.” When we lose our balance and fall down, we smile and get up. When I am working with this metaphor, I find a question from one of my teachers to be helpful: What is needed now in this moment? And I listen though my breath to what might come up.

The second metaphor is pretty self-explanatory: that of a pressure cooker and releasing the pressure before it blows up! There are many ways we can release steam, for example, laughing at ourselves, screaming into a pillow, going outside for a walk…

These are difficult times indeed. I hope that some of the ideas from this article provides more ability to meet that which we might habitually turn away from

May all beings be safe and well. May all beings find moments of happiness and peace each day. May all beings be free from suffering.