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how to make worldly life spiritual? please suggest.
misecmisc1
I am a HinduIndia Veteran
hi all,
i have read at many places, where it is said that - the worldly life and spiritual life are not two totally different paths, rather life is a practice as Zen says every moment of life is a practice - so in a way, whether it is a family layman life or a monk's life, no difference, as the practice comes down to moment by moment. But practically speaking, do you all think it is really possible to make the worldly life as a spiritual life. Zen says - i think Dogen said - both Samsara and Nirvana are in here and now and it is not that we move from Samsara to Nirvana, rather enlightenment is practice which continues through out life.
on a practical world situation, what i have found in my family life over the last few years is that - there is always some problem to fix in the house, always something to buy from the market, always something in the office to think about may be it is the current work's result, trying to avoid some work(which may come to me), trying to figure out the next set of activities in the work and also to figure out many parallel going current activities having dependencies on other people to get completed. so a feeling comes to my mind usually these days that it seems to me that i am wasting my time in these activities, but still i need to do these activities to take care of my family and to take care of my job - but a thought arises that if i die say tonight, then what is the use of these activities which i am doing now. i have been studying spirituality for nearly 2 years now - started with Lord Krishna's teachings in Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta and after that studied Buddha's teachings. my mindfulness is so weak that almost a whole day goes, then at the end of the day sometimes i remember i should try to be in here and now, try to feel my breath - but by that time almost the whole day has passed by.
i am not able to find the balance between worldly way and spiritual way in my life.
so any suggestions, please. how do you make your worldly life spiritual, how long have you been practicing spirituality, leaving aside what the different religions say - based on your experience, what would you say regarding the question - is it really possible to make worldly life a completely spiritual life? please suggest. thanks in advance.
i have read at many places, where it is said that - the worldly life and spiritual life are not two totally different paths, rather life is a practice as Zen says every moment of life is a practice - so in a way, whether it is a family layman life or a monk's life, no difference, as the practice comes down to moment by moment. But practically speaking, do you all think it is really possible to make the worldly life as a spiritual life. Zen says - i think Dogen said - both Samsara and Nirvana are in here and now and it is not that we move from Samsara to Nirvana, rather enlightenment is practice which continues through out life.
on a practical world situation, what i have found in my family life over the last few years is that - there is always some problem to fix in the house, always something to buy from the market, always something in the office to think about may be it is the current work's result, trying to avoid some work(which may come to me), trying to figure out the next set of activities in the work and also to figure out many parallel going current activities having dependencies on other people to get completed. so a feeling comes to my mind usually these days that it seems to me that i am wasting my time in these activities, but still i need to do these activities to take care of my family and to take care of my job - but a thought arises that if i die say tonight, then what is the use of these activities which i am doing now. i have been studying spirituality for nearly 2 years now - started with Lord Krishna's teachings in Shreemad Bhagwad Geeta and after that studied Buddha's teachings. my mindfulness is so weak that almost a whole day goes, then at the end of the day sometimes i remember i should try to be in here and now, try to feel my breath - but by that time almost the whole day has passed by.
i am not able to find the balance between worldly way and spiritual way in my life.
so any suggestions, please. how do you make your worldly life spiritual, how long have you been practicing spirituality, leaving aside what the different religions say - based on your experience, what would you say regarding the question - is it really possible to make worldly life a completely spiritual life? please suggest. thanks in advance.
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Comments
Because 'wordly' and 'spiritual' only exist in our minds.
The Lankavatara Sutra says ' ALL duality is falsely imagined '...
All that is is a series of conditioned events arising, and passing.
We prefer some events and try to keep hold of them..blisses and joys and so on.
We are aversive to other events and try to avoid them, or wish them away, or to feel 'religious' while they are happening.
But everything is simply arising. The ' we ' who prefer one thing and is aversive to other things is also simply arising and passing away. Its all prasadam. Its all freely given and passing.
I am not going to talk about my own experience because it doesn't matter and won't help you.
It starts with your next breath and ...continues. It all has to laid down. Over and over and over.
All aversion and all grasping. Over and over.
Its your life...
make of it what you will
be a god, be a servant, be a worker, be a householder, be a monk, be a fixer...
just be a doobe
sorry, probably not helpful...but couldn't help myself
Of course, it's one thing to say this and quite another to do it. I expect most people here would admit that they cannot maintain their ideal state of mind 24/7. It would take a great deal of commitment, skill and practice.
You may find the the methods of Gurdjieff interesting for maintaining a calm and stable centre amidst the madness of life. He is often dismissed as a fool, but I think he is much misunderstood.
Metta means giving of your time and attention to everyone you meet, from the guy at work making your job harder to the woman with aching feet standing at the checkout counter of the gas station. You will find your day filled with opportunities to help other people, even if it's just a smile and a few kind words out of your busy schedule.
You'll find as you pay attention to other people, you think less about yourself. Strangely, if done right this helps you as much as it helps others. Eventually, you discover the distinction between you and other beings is not such a hard line.
Hope this helps.
So I think you have to make time for it, you have to reschedule things and prioritize. I don't know your life, so that is up to you to find out, but here are some tips which from my experience worked: Prioritize the precepts first off all, if you haven't already. That's something you can always do, no matter how much time you are required to spend on your job etc. To me only following the precepts already gives lots of happiness, but you have to follow them strictly.
Then I would fit in a regular meditation slot in your days, that should be possible for everybody. In the weekends you may be able to make it a bit longer. Some free weekends or free days I fully devoted to practice. Also, if you can, go on a meditatoin retreat. Perhaps instead of a holiday. Going on one retreat may help you more than years of bit-by-bit practice because you can really build up the calm and clarity. Also a good way to learn about being without sensual gratifications.
Another thing I needed to do is review my friendships. Most friendships were mainly about the 'sensual' things like dance parties, movies, eating together, silly jokes etc. Those I slowly disconnected from, not as a conscious choice but mainly out of fading interest. Having less contact with friends also leaves more time for practice. And if you are lucky like me, you will still be able to contact those friends that are also trying to improve their kindness and such. That is one major thing you may be able to do to change your life to be more suitable to practice.
I've been practicing now for about 8 years. Overall it was a pleasant experience that fitted into my life quite well. But I would be a hypocrite to leave aside that I haven't had problems fitting the practice into my life as well. Those things I suggested above didn't always come easy. But I think that's one of the challenges on the path, especially the path of the lay persons.
I think that the path factor of right livelihood can be seen not just as the job you have, but as this whole process of restructuring your life. The practice changes your mind, which changes your life, which changes your practice etc. It's always refitting things to which there is no single solution that applies to everyone. For myself I came to a point that I decided I am going to permanently live in a monastery and hopefully ordain there. I am lucky to have this opportunity, because I have no child or spouse to support. Then again, it is not easy to leave friends and family behind. And certainly, life in a monastery is hard in another way. There will always be challenges, but whether lay or ordained, the challenges will be mostly, if not fully, in the mind.
A long reply.. but it came naturally. I hope you can find some help/support in this.
If you die tonight - the use of the activities you undertook would be the same as if you didn't die tonight.
Unless what you are saying is that if you knew you would die next week, you would abandon your current life in favour of another life which you are not going for now as you may not die so soon and if you don't then the life you have now is the best of the compromises - seems quite a selfish way to consider the issue.
I'm not sure that you are able to reconcile the positions as it seems that you are leaning on one to escape the other... but what are you running from and where are you running to?
"For an uninstructed run-of-the-mill person there arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. For a well-instructed disciple of the noble ones there also arise gain, loss, status, disgrace, censure, praise, pleasure, & pain. So what difference, what distinction, what distinguishing factor is there between the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones and the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person?"
http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/an/an08/an08.006.than.html
thanks for all your insightful replies. it seems to me that what you have said above is the same thing which i am trying to do - i.e. trying to cowardly escape from the worldly family life, selfishly trying to blame my family in my mind for not letting me progress on spiritual path, even though it was my decision to get married to my wife but at that time i was not aware about spirituality - after my daughter became 2 months old, i struck sprituality - so may be i have some kind of backlog karma leading to such weirdness in my life. now having studied spirituality for about 2 years now, it seems to me that whatever we do in this world is ultimately useless, as whatever arises, stays for a while and then ceases - so what is the point of taking so much tension of trying to figure out the ways to get things fixed in house, to strive hard to get promotion in job, trying to make things safe for future though not able to do it as future is uncertain.
what i am finding in my life is - there is always some activity which needs to be done. this is not to say that when i am in weekend and somehow i try to do nothing on a weekend, then i am mindful in the weekend - this is not the case either - but a thought comes to my mind that if there were less things to figure out, then i will get some more time, then i can try to be mindful of my activities. may be this is just prapancha of my mind and may be even if i have to do no activities in a day, then also i may not be mindful of my bodily sensations or my breath. it seems that i am trying to run from my family situation to a situation where i am having less things to figure out, but this does not mean i am thinking of leaving my family, i will take care of my family, but something inside me keeps on saying to me that i am wasting my life, as through out the day, there is some activity which needs to be figured out or to be done and my mind gets totally entangled in these activities and sometimes the whole day passes and i do not remember that i should try to be mindful of my activities.
And when you have to be mindful is not always during every activity. It is mainly useful to be mindful of the arising of unwholesome states, such as aversion. Because that's when you can really learn. If you see arising aversion to your family, or your life, don't feed it. Instead try to let it go, or turn it around even. Or, mindfulness when you are about to break a precept, when you are on the edge of lying.
Mindfulness or "sati" literally means recollection, so it asks us to recollect our precepts and our intentions to be kind/generous/etc. You can make a resolution to yourself to be mindful of these things, instead of trying to be mindful of everything all the time. This is much easier to do in lay life and also much more fruitful.
This is how I initially did it and it is a good basis to expand upon later.
Hope it helps,
Sabre
Reminds me of a time when I was sitting outside the zen center after a meditation retreat. My teacher, who is an ordained zen master monk, came out to one of the cars and was fiddling around with the license plate. I went over and asked him what he was doing. He said the car got a new license plate so he was trying to put it on the car. But, when someone took the old one off, they threw away the screws! So he couldn't put the new one on. So now he had to go and drive to the store just to get 2 little screws to put the license plate on the car, even though he had a bunch of other stuff to do. Then he turned to me and said "Always something to do!" So I said to him "Always something to do yea? So let me ask you this. There is always something to do, so is that good or is that bad?" He turned to me, smiled and then laughed and said "None of the above".
But practically speaking. If you really want to have worldly layperson life and spiritual life become one, you have to have a strong daily meditation practice. It's the only way.
Mindfulness is an essential foundation for ALL behaviour. Compassion , kindness, and generosity without mindfulness can easily lapse into sentimentality and an over-identifying with those who are on the receiving end of our compassion etc.
Mindfulness is a mindset..not a series of feelings. It is a mindset characterised by awareness and centredness which should precede ALL actions..
Sati does indeed mean 'recollection' ..but not in the sense of memory or recalling actions. Not even good intentions or 'good' actions
It means to re-collect. To collect our scattered selves To become one pointed. To become focused and aware of ourselves. This is often achieved via the breath or by 'scanning' our physical processes in order to bring ourselves into the present..which is the only place where identification with passing states can be seen, and most importantly, seen as not -self.
So the question is, what is the right thing for us to be mindful of? If misecmisc has a feeling he is blaming his family of him not being able to practice (which is a form of aversion), I'd say that is the first thing to address. Worry about all-day mindfulness later.
When I was living in a monastery virtually every day had cooking, fixing things, cleaning, gardening. And the monks also had planning of trips, building activities, guests housing etc. This is all part of life. Degrees may vary but in the end everybody has to come and accept it in a same way - lay or ordained - with family or single. The funny thing is, when there I sometimes also thought: "I dont want another job to do, I want to practice".. luckily I already knew it's exactly that attitude that has to be under the attention of practice, and not the jobs themself.
When I left they thanked me for all the work I did and reflecting upon it now I it makes me more happy than when I would have meditated all the time. (which I still did a lot and agree is also essential in lay life) Dana, the act of doing something for others, is an important part of the path.
And to be sure there are a number of techniques which deploy the term in specific ways...anapanasati for example..and by extension the whole corpus that has developed around vipassana..
But there is another useage frequently encountered in the Suttas ,and more developed in the Mahayana ,which is to do with a mindset of relaxed awareness which is cultivated in all situations and which is even achievable in dream states. The Buddha uses various metaphors to describe this mindset..all have to do with sobriety and awareness.
The right thing for us to be mindful of primarily is our physical and psychological being, in the present. Our relationship to that which arises, whether positive or negative is secondary.
So in the specific case that misecmisc has presented, instead of firefighting the causes of attraction and/or aversion on a case by case basis ( we will in the normal way never run out of causes for aversion/attraction ) in my view he should instead turn his attention to his self sense and where that comes into being. That is the root of the tree.
Will and intention are limited until the arising of prajna/panna. With that arising, aversion and attraction retires of itself .
However, @misecmisc1 please let us know if you think this conversation is useful for you or not. I don't want to clutter up your topic.
But there is a use of the term which points to a mindset which is a priori to all action and even to intention. It is a state of re-collectedness, of awareness prior to activity and even to thought.
I am sorry that Thanissaro Bhikkhu is not to your taste, but I assure you that I was quoting him verbatim
Mindfulness is frequently non-responsive. It is to remain for the duration in a state of neither aversion nor attraction. Instead the attention remains with the self sense as experienced physically or psychologically.
Mindfulness adopts the witness posture. Mindfulness IS the witness that stands at the centre of the arising kandhas/skandhas..In both the waking and sleeping states.
However I think we are reaching the limits of what is possible on a multi-schooled forum.
Because I think we have moved into that which represents the most major of the differences between the Theravada and the Mahayana.
To whit Mindfulness as cultivation, and Mindfulness as the actualisation of what is always already the case.
_/\_
my theoretical understanding says: mindfulness or sati means recollection or keeping in mind something. so mindfulness of breathing means to remember to keep breath in mind. another term is sampajanna or awareness. so i think sampajanna notes that in the current moment, a breath is going inside the body and sati is the faculty which reminds us when we get entangled in a thought that we have to be aware of breath, so sati remembers that we have to observe the breath.
please rectify the above if my understanding is not correct above. thanks in advance.
But when the suttas speak of breath mindfulness, they speak of it after sitting down in a quiet place. So this practice of mindfulness is not something you do all day during all tasks. The main purpose of mindfulness is to develop the 8th factor of the path, tranquility (or "concentration"), which is something the Buddha himself seemingly also had to sit/lie down for. This tranquility is the mind becoming one pointed, so it can't really both be working on a job AND be mindful like this.
I say this because the very struggle to try and do it anyway, may be leading to more problems than it's worth. For me it was more fruitful to focus upon what the mind does during our jobs. Does it go to aversion? Does it go to craving? Does it want to break a precept? And then try to not feed the unskillful way of thinking, and instead invest in the skillful ways. In a way it is more easy to notice also, because the mind and thoughts are always there in front of you, while the breath can be hiding very subtle and is easy to miss.
This practice of looking at the thoughts and transforming them is also what the Buddha did for a time before his awakening. If you are interested you can find it in the suttas MN 19 and 20 if that says anything to you. (Otherwise I will find links and post here). Only when he sat down under a tree did he focus on his breath and enter the one pointedness of mind.
Hope this can provide you some alternate way of looking at things that hopefully is easier to integrate in your life.
Don't forget, however, that the key is to stay kind to yourself. When slowly changing your thought pattern, the mind may resist, and try to throw up all kinds of stuff even worse than before. Remember, this is not you, this is just a process. No need to get angry with it, no need to struggle. When one of my favorite monks asked me how I was doing, I said: "It's going well, but sometimes it's hard". His response was "good, that's the way it is intended".
Who'da thunk a little orange root could be such a dharma teacher?
So with such a limited view, how is it possible with certainty to conclude and fix upon such conclusions?
Lack of knowledge is ignorance.
Attaching to ignorance brings confusion.
Attaching to confusion brings fear.
Residing in these states is rarely satisfactory.
Whatever we do in this world is the natural expression of our existence - it is as useless as the earth revolving around the sun...
I agree with avoiding tension - so just fix the house and enjoy, just be the best you can be at your job, take all your part in your secure present. If it is useless then what is there to waste?
Examine carefully why you're trying to run from your family situation - what you think you're running from and what you're running to.
Your family is a unit - taking care of it involves taking care of you also - in this regard we all reap what is sown.
Just a suggestion! _/\_
thanks for all your replies.
one more question - how do you all find balance between striving too hard and striving too little for getting an activity done - not daily household activities, but activities like promotion at office, getting a good work task at office etc. please suggest. thanks in advance.
You don't want to to striving so hard at the office that you forget to take care of your health. You may end up spending have your life earning enough to pay for the medical expenses for the remaining half.
On the other hand, if you slack too much- you may not have enough for your retirement.
The strings of a violin should neither be to tight or too lax in order for it to produce beautiful sounds.