How to Train a Wild Elephant_ And Other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays [19]
We know how to use loving hands and touch. We touch babies, faithful dogs, crying children, and lovers with tenderness and care. Why don’t we use loving touch all the time? This is the essential question of mindfulness. Why can’t I live like this all the time? Once we discover how much richer our life is when we are more present, why do we fall back into our old habits and space out?
DEEPER LESSONS
We are being touched all the time, but we are largely unaware of it. Touch usually only enters our awareness when it is uncomfortable (a rock in my sandal) or associated with intense desire (when she or he kisses me for the first time). When we begin to open our awareness to all the touch sensations, both inside and outside of our bodies, we might feel frightened. It can be overwhelming.
Ordinarily we are more aware of using loving touch with people than with objects. However, when we are in a hurry or upset with someone, we turn him or her into an object. We rush out of the house without saying good-bye to someone we love, we ignore a coworker’s greeting because of a disagreement the day before. This is how other people become objectified, a nuisance, an obstacle, and ultimately, an enemy.
In Japan objects are often personified. Many things are honored and treated with loving care, things we would consider inanimate and therefore not deserving of respect, let alone love. Money is handed to cashiers with two hands, tea whisks are given personal names, broken sewing needles are given a funeral and laid to rest in a soft block of tofu, the honorific “o-” is attached to mundane things such as money (o-kane), water (o-mizu), tea (o-cha), and even chopsticks (o-hashi). This may come from the Shinto tradition of honoring the kami or spirits that reside in waterfalls, large trees, and mountains. If water, wood, and stone are seen as holy, then all things that arise from them are also holy.
My Zen teachers taught me, through example, how to handle all things as if they were alive. Zen master Maezumi Roshi opened envelopes, even junk mail, using a letter opener in order to make a clean cut, and removed the contents with careful attention. He became upset when people used their feet to drag meditation cushions around the floor or banged their plates down on the table. “I can feel it in my body,” he once said. While most modern priests use clothes hangers, Zen master Harada Roshi takes time to fold his monk’s robes each night, and to “press” them under his mattress or suitcase. His everyday robe is always crisp. There are robes hundreds of years old in his care. He treats each robe as the robe of the Buddha.
Can we imagine the touch-awareness of enlightened beings? How sensitive and how wide might their field of awareness be? Jesus became immediately aware when a sick woman touched the hem of his garment was been healed.
Final Words: “When you handle rice, water, or anything else, have the affectionate and caring concern of a parent raising a child.”—Zen master Dogen
12
Waiting
The Exercise: Any time you find yourself waiting—when you’re in line at the store, waiting for someone who’s late, or waiting for the “please wait” icon on your computer screen to go away—take this as an opportunity to practice mindfulness, meditation, or prayer.
There are several good mindfulness practices for waiting time. One is mindfulness of breath, beginning with a few deep breaths to help dispel body tension over having to wait or the possibility of someone you are waiting for being late. Find the place in your body where you are most aware of the breath—nostrils, chest, or belly—and put your attention on the sensations in that area, noticing how they are continuously changing.
Another useful practice for waiting time is listening