When on retreat at the monastery, we live as a community. Each of us works in groups doing small jobs that, when summed together, help support the function of the larger whole. In the Plum Village tradition these jobs are called working meditation. Working is a meditation because, when we attend to it, we attend to it fully. It is a way to practice mindfulness, bringing honor and respect to the work as a reflection of our care for the larger community.
     During this past retreat, my groups was on dish washing duty - making sure that the dish washing area was set up so that retreatants could wash their dishes after eating. There were four tables set up for this, each one with four buckets of water - one warm and soapy and three for progressive rinsing. Since it was spread over a large area of the grounds, the hose from the main building was not able to reach the fourth table.
     On one particular day there was a gap in the schedule between the end of the Dharma talk and walking meditation. While waiting for walking meditation to begin, I noticed that a fellow working meditator was beginning to fill the washing buckets at Table 1. I gladly went over to help and, knowing that the hose didn't reach Table 4, brought those empty buckets over to be filled. With so much sitting and being out of my daily exercise routine, I was looking forward to moving some muscles by carrying the full buckets of water back to Table 4. And I wasn't concerned that the water would get cool while we did walking meditation before lunch since the dish washing area was in full sun and it had been a consistent sunny, 90+ hot and humid for days.
     I was so happy waiting for the buckets to be filled, standing and watching my breath and feeling the not-yet-blistering sun. While standing, a Sister came over and began rearranging the extra empty buckets I had brought over from Table 4. When I told her what I was doing, she looked at me and told me that it was OK and to put them back. I reassured her it was no problem for me to bring the full buckets over to Table 4 and that I was just helping out before walking meditation. She again requested, with the sweet insistence that only a monastic can, to bring the empty buckets to Table 4 and that "we will move full buckets from Table 3 and, in that way, will conserve our energy".

                                            I felt like I was hit with a sharp dart... pang... deflated.

     Even though her words were encouraging and I knew she was just being thoughtful in looking out for my welfare, my inner child was deeply touched. I felt taken aback, not quite reprimanded, but hurt in a very soft and tender place.
     After returning the empty buckets to Table 4 and with the Sister's encouragement, I quietly walked over to where walking meditation was starting. Tears began to well in my eyes and my throat was so closed that I couldn't join in singing the walking gatha songs. I knew there was so much more to this simple interaction and held on desperately within myself to find what that was. I didn't want to start balling but did let the tears come. I had no fear about doing this, knowing that the monastery is a safe place to be as you are and to be held by the larger community. Searching for the next best step, I invited my inner child to hold my hand as I walked with the group of 200 others, allowed gentle tears to caress my face as I took one step... one step... one step.
     Breathing into my body and feeling it relax a bit, I let myself settle and see what was there. The sister was right and hers was a genuine concern, especially as the weather had been so hot the past few days. I quietly thanked her. More breath. "I wanted to help, though." said my inner child's voice. "Was I not needed? Did I not belong?" More breath as I held my pain with gentle awareness and glad for the gift of being able to touch these tender seeds. I held myself like a mother holds a hurt child, not seeking answers but just being there to comfort the pain and for the child to be seen. It was a very old pain.
     I continued to walk to rest of that meditation with my inner child in one hand and Thay, my Oma, and all my other guides and supports in the other. It was very nurturing and, in the end, brought me to ask myself, like the buckets of water, what things in my life am I carrying that I don't need to? Might there be an easier and less strenuous way to arrive at the same, if not better, results? Conversely, what am I not putting effort into that could use the attention and how can I best divert resources to something that is more meaningful? Basically, where am I mismanaging my energies and how does that play out in my life?
     As I've come back home off retreat, I'm taking a look around at where and how I am spending my time. As someone in the support services, it's easy to get lost doing things that you think will be of benefit or over- extending your services beyond the Oxygen Mask (i.e. taking care of yourself). Balance in all segments of life is the Middle Way and one that creates freedom alongside diligent effort. It's certainly a practice for me and, in the meantime, I continue to have gratitude to the Sister for bringing it to my attention once again.
     So what about you? Where do you find that you are wasting efforts, energy, or time? How does that impact your life and how you care for yourself? If you could change or improve one thing as this season of change is upon us, what would that be? Share with me if you'd like. I'd love to hear your inspiration for transition.

Love and peace to you!
Shanti

Shanti Douglas
Mindfulness & Stress Management Coach
Eden Energy Medicine Certified Practitioner
8 limbs Holistic Health, LLC

     “The Miracle of Mindfulness”… the miracle of showing up for your life as it is right now… noticing what’s there… in all of it’s many forms… with deep awareness and acceptance.
     You hear me say (or write) variations of this quite frequently but what is mindfulness really? While there are thousands of studies quantifying the beneficial impacts that mindfulness has on the physical and mental body, work productivity, concentration, relationships of all kinds, and overall health, and while we cognitively understand mindfulness to be present to this moment, again, what is it really?
     Stepping away from the view that it is a tool that will help us achieve greater goodness, we must, if we are to truly understand mindfulness, realize first and foremost that it’s an embodied practice. It is a state of being, not a performance enhancement too or a therapeutic technique.
     Recently I spent six days at Blue Cliff Monastery in New York with 400+ practitioners living as many moments as we were able to in mindfulness. I say “as many as” since, no matter the strength of our practice, there seems to be an ebb and flow in and out of this practice of presence. “The Miracle of Mindfulness” was the retreat’s theme, celebrating the publication of this titled book by my teacher and Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh 40 years earlier. Out of the 400 retreatants, about one-third were brand new to a retreat in the Plum Village tradition, a tradition which emphasizes integrating mindfulness into everyday normal activities and occurrences. Each moment of life is an opportunity and a gift so why not show up and be more fully aware of them?
     The retreat day begins and ends in silence - an opportunity to connect with the voice inside - and in between we are fed with nurturing practices such as mindful meals, sitting and walking meditation, working meditation, Dharma talks (teachings), and sharing from the heart. Each step along the way is an opportunity to recognize our wholesome and unwholesome mental formations (ideas, thoughts, judgments, labels), i.e. discursions that typically hold us back from an open view of possibility. As we mostly seeking to control and reformulate our surroundings, there’s a continual backdrop of mind chatter that works to unconsciously sort and categorize our experiences, pulling or pushing our mental and physical resources into all sorts of directions in an attempt to make life more to our liking. In the retreat setting we are gifted with a slower pace, making it easier to notice this habituated mind activity and to create attitudes of openness and curiosity, awakening us to the many details we miss as we busily go about our day. We have an opportunity to notice our thoughts, feelings, emotions, and sensations of all kinds, all aspects of ourselves that are lost in the commotion of mind and body multitasking.
     There is so much depth to the simplest of things - drinking tea or coffee, walking, bathing, picking up things, noticing a landscape, eating chocolate. How is your moment of life when you are sipping your tea in the bright sunshine? Noticing… what responsibilities are weighing heavily on your shoulders and in between your "should" blades? Can we soften our body just a smidgen and return to the tangy flavor of our tea, drinking in the refreshing elements of Nature in the tea leaves and rain clouds? How are we now?
     Each time we let ourselves open to experience what is in front of us, we capture a part of ourselves that we would otherwise have missed. We get to know what’s underneath and behind the busyness that has become our habit and, for that wonderful moment, notice the Self that is noticing the self. As we bring more and more awareness to ourselves and our experience, even if it contains pain or uncomfortableness, we can begin the journey of taking care of our true selves (behind the roles and ego) more fully. This awareness of self is the first step in healing the pains and points of suffering. From this place, understanding and then reconciliation may arrive. In this way, mindfulness is a miracle for, with the simplest of attention, we can gift ourselves the preciousness of our life.
     So try this on. For a few minutes right now, stop what you are doing and bring awareness to your breathing. You’ve been doing it all day long and it’s been supporting every action you’ve taken. As you pay attention to it, don’t do anything different to it - just leave it as it is. Now also sense your body with the breath, noticing the subtle movements of it as you breathe in and out. Staying here for a few minutes, let everything else settle down - your mind, your thoughts, your to-do’s. The only thing to do in this moment is to pay attention to yourself, breathing. Stay here and rest. Open to being and breathing. What’s there that you may have missed before? What miracle of mindfulness is yours?

Love and peace to you!
Shanti

Shanti Douglas
Mindfulness & Stress Management Coach
Eden Energy Medicine Certified Practitioner
8 limbs Holistic Health, LLC