Meditation Can be Anything
By: Amanda O Bryan
Tags: Mindfulness, Meditation, Nature, Self, Mental Health

Meditation Can be Anything

And anyone can do it

Photo by Katya Austin on Unsplash

These are rule-less times. Times when it might be best to throw out what’s “normal” and start over. I just read a list of things that you shouldn’t feel obligated to do right now. One of the items on the list was, “you don’t have to meditate” during the quarantine.

A record number of people are considering taking up meditation right now. Still, maybe to you, it feels like yet another thing you should be doing, and that feels overwhelming and suffocating.

Like baking bread. Why is everyone baking bread right now? I’m baking a lot, but it’s cookies. All the cookies, but bread feels a little daunting.

I’m here to tell you that baking can be meditation. Cookies can be meditation. Meditation is a tool, and it can be applied to anything.

Working meditation

When I was on a silent retreat in North Carolina, after our morning sit, we would have breakfast, and then do “working meditation” for an hour. A the beginning of the retreat, everyone was assigned a task, such as cleaning the bathrooms or washing dishes.

My group was assigned yard work. They gave us several options, raking leaves, weeding beds, and those of us who were used to yard work were free to improvise. The groundskeeper said several times, “You can’t do it wrong. As long as you are mindful, you are doing it right. If you don’t finish what you are doing, you finish it tomorrow.”

So, we would work steadily for one hour, and when the bell rang, we put up our tools and went back to the hall for seated meditation.

What I discovered was that there was no difference between seated meditation, walking meditation, and working meditation. The practice was the same. What changes is your focus.

In each case, we were trying to stay present and not get carried away by our thoughts. Whether walking, working, or sitting, we were practicing a mantra and focusing on our breath. Seated meditation was just a little more tricky because there’s nothing else to do.

Finding flow in work

Initially, during working meditation, I tried weeding and clearing some different patches and garden beds. But the other members of my group kept beating me to them. So by about the third day, I decided I’d go into the woods and start raking the paths.

It seemed like a wonderfully pointless activity. Raking leaves in the woods is like shoveling the walk while it’s snowing. It feels a little silly. But, it also felt like a perfect meditation on impermanence.

As I raked, I would notice little parts of the path that needed tending, maybe moving a fallen branch to create an edge, or shifting the route slightly to protect a young tree. I worked carefully and methodically. The task had no beginning, and no end and no one cared if it ever got done.

Nonetheless, I took such great care. For the hour that I was in the woods, I was fully present, listening, looking, breathing. When my mind started chattering I repeated the mantra of the day.

There came a moment when I spotted a large black snake moving through the leaves just outside of the path. I think he saw me at the same time. We both paused.

As I gazed at this snake, I felt no fear. The surprise I felt barely registered. A pebble dropped into a still pond, the ripples felt for a moment and then fading away. I had been so deep in my concentration, so at peace with my work, that this snake was like a friend, and just another creature passing through.

After a few minutes of looking, I included him in my mantra, that he be free from suffering, and I moved on. After a few minutes, he began to slither away.

Mindless living

I contrast this moment with a different moment in a different wood when I was hiking with a friend. Again, there was a huge black snake, this time laying directly across the path. My friend and I were talking loudly and loping along. In my distraction, I stepped right on the snake, thinking it was a stick. When it wriggled under my foot, I jumped, letting out a shout, and the snake darted quickly away.

Black snakes in this part of the country are not dangerous or aggressive, so there was nothing for me to be afraid of in either case (the snake, on the other hand, has plenty to fear in humans). But I can appreciate the difference. In one situation, I was calm, and we were able to coexist. In the other instance, I caused harm, because I was not mindful.

And isn’t that the point? Isn’t that why we meditate in the first place? To reduce suffering. First, we reduce our suffering, and then others because that is what naturally follows.

I hope that this story will illustrate to you that meditation doesn’t necessarily have to look any particular way. The idea is that you are in the flow of the moment, and you are fully present with whatever is there.

It’s easy to turn tasks into distractions. Or, to be lost in our thoughts as we complete a chore. But each moment is a tiny invitation into the now. And often, when we allow our minds to rest, and our eyes to focus, there is magic right in front of us.