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DISCOVERIES

Don’t be discouraged if at first you don’t succeed in carrying out this task. It is one of the most difficult tasks we’ve undertaken at the monastery over the years. You find yourself walking toward a door, thinking, “Door. Door. Be mindful walking through the . . .” and suddenly you find yourself on the other side of the door, with no awareness of how you passed through it. After doing this task for a week once or twice a year we have become better at it, eventually becoming aware of entering new spaces even when there wasn’t a helpful barrier such as a door.

Differences in spaces are most obvious when you step from indoors to outdoors. There are clear changes in temperature, air quality, smell, light, sound, and even feeling tone. With practice we can also detect these kinds of differences, though they are more subtle, when we enter or exit the many different indoor spaces we move through in a day.

One person used a counter to keep track of the number of doors he passed through—over two hundred forty in one day! That’s a lot of potential mindfulness moments. This task seems to spawn creativity and also new tasks. For example, one person added the practice of noticing “doors” in her mind closing and opening as she let go of one train of thought and began another. She became most aware of entering new “rooms” in her mind during meditation. Another person, who had a lifelong habit of slamming doors, worked on closing doors gently. Another tried to make her mind as big as the space in each new room she entered.

DEEPER LESSONS

It took many of us, including me, several weeks of repeating this task until we were able to bring mindfulness to even half of the doors we walked through. We improved when someone hung a large sheet of Plexiglas in a dim hallway near a commonly used door. We all walked into it several times, even the person who hung it up! A few bangs on the head can do wonders for one’s mindfulness.

We also pondered why this exercise was so challenging. One person had an insight: as we walk toward a door, our mind moves ahead to the future, toward what we will be encountering and doing on the other side. This mind movement is not obvious. It takes careful watching. It makes us go unconscious, just briefly, of what we are doing in the present. The unconscious or semiconscious mind, however, is able to steer us through the movements of opening the door and making our way safely through.

This is one example of how we move through much of our day like sleepwalkers, navigating through the world while caught in a dream. This semiconscious state is a source of dissatisfaction (dukkha in Sanskrit), the persistent feeling that something is not right, that there is a gap between us and life as it is actually happening. As we learn to become present, bit by bit, the gap closes and life becomes more vivid and satisfying.

Final Words: Appreciate each physical space and each mind space that you encounter.

18

Notice Trees

The Exercise: During this week become aware of the trees around you. There are many aspects you can attend to, for example, their different shapes (round or slim, neat or shaggy in outline), different heights, ways of branching, and colors and types of foliage. Don’t let the mind begin analyzing; just notice and appreciate the trees. (If you live in a treeless area, you can change this to becoming aware of cacti, bushes, or grasses.)

A good time to notice trees is when you are driving or walking, or when you look out windows. If you have a chance, walk among the trees in a park, forest, or tree-lined street. Look at leaves and bark close up. Be aware that trees are breathing. What they breathe out (oxygen), we breathe in. What we breathe out (carbon dioxide), they breathe in.

REMINDING YOURSELF

Post a small picture of a tree on the dashboard of your car and on windows you often look through.

DISCOVERIES

Trees can easily become “part of the wallpaper” in our lives. We take their presence for granted and stop seeing them individually