c. 1999 Religion News Service

(Les Kaye is the abbot of Kannon Do, the Zen Meditation Center in Mountain, Calif., and author of”Zen at Work”(Crown, 1997). He currently teaches meditation to businesses in Silicon Valley.)

UNDATED _ Did you ever spill something because you weren’t paying attention? Do you know anybody who hasn’t?

A vivid memory of creating a mess through lack of awareness returns again and again over the years like a continuous wake-up call. Preparing the breakfast coffee _ spooning grounds from the container into the filter _ I bumped the spoon on the lip of the container. Coffee flew everywhere.”Pay attention,”I told myself. Despite the self admonition, I did it again with the very next spoonful! Frustrated, I put the spoon down, the first step in getting my attention focused. Becoming aware that I was trying to do several things at once, I took a deep breath and said to myself,”Take care of doing just this one thing.” All the”spills”we create _ not just with our hands but in the ocean of personal relationships as well _ begin in our own mind. Distracted by the many things we have to do in a brief time, our mind wanders from taking care of the activity in front of it, becoming concerned instead for finishing the task as quickly as it can and moving on to another item on its”to do”list.

Giving in to distraction, we give up caring about the activity we are doing. And in a subtle but real way, we give up caring about our self, about the value of the effort we are making with our life.

Perhaps like never before, a major concern these busy and stressful days is for the lack of time _ time to do all the things that need to be done, to do them”on time,”to do them in a quality way.

But the real problem for us is not about the scarcity of time, which we can learn to manage. Instead, it is the feeling that,”I must get on to something else; this activity is taking too much time.”When we have this attitude we really don’t know what we are doing, because our mind is somewhere else, not focused on what it decided it needs to do. If we don’t know what we are doing, how can we be our self? If our mind is somewhere else, it means we are trying to be someone else, not who we are in the present moment. This is our fundamental problem.

How can we respond in a positive way to distractions, to have the capacity to give full attention to the task or relationship before us? The simplest, most direct way is through meditation, the act that brings attention to the present moment. Meditation is not an”other worldly”spiritual activity; it is the practice of awareness, the immediate connection to our practical, everyday life. Its purpose is to enable us to be fully alive in each moment.

Meditation reveals the mind’s addiction for contemplating the future and reminiscing the past. It helps us understand that by dwelling in a time other than the present, the ego starts to churn, anxieties arise, desires become distractions, and to do things well is nearly impossible. But when there is no idea of time, there are no expectations, and desires do not become a problem.

Meditation teaches us to be careful of allowing ideas of time to interfere with our activity. Through experience, we discover how not to lose our self, but instead to be fully engaged in the”doing”of whatever it is we decided that we must do.

Awareness practice _ meditation _ is like any other skill-building activity. It is not meant to be casual, or occasional, or reserved for when convenient. It should not be restricted by ideas such as,”I don’t have time to do this,”or,”This activity takes too much time.”The serious meditation practitioner knows how necessary it is to”sit”every day.

Imagine the dentist who invented the toothbrush announcing to his clients and colleagues,”Here is the way to reduce tooth decay, gum disease, and mouth odor. But you have to use it everyday, even twice a day.”I wonder if people thought,”Every day is too much; I don’t have time.”Even if some did, only small children express that kind of resistance today. We appreciate the benefit of taking time to brush, and to brush well. We understand that not brushing because we are”short of time”leads to serious problems in the long run.

Awareness practice through meditation is the best way to manage time, the best way to prevent spills. Spilling something and making a mess can be a signal that we are too concerned about time and all the things we have to do. Developing the skill to recognize when we are distracted and to return the mind to awareness of the present moment enables us to appreciate our self in all activities.

DEA END RNS