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- Life in Work
Thursday, August 9, 2007A method of beginning the day
How can we begin to pay attention to how we are? After all, there are so many competing parts within us, it can get downright confusing. No matter where we turn it seems like our “inner space” is already occupied by usurpers who claim a pressing need. We get up groggy, disconnected: by the time we suit up, kick start the engine, and hit our inner highway, the motorcycle gangs are already out, …and they don’t use mufflers. Like Gurdjieff’s Karapet of Tiflis, we need to get there first. And as he so handily discovered, the best time to do that is the very first thing in the morning. One useful effort in regard to connection with breath is to try and see how it is immediately upon awakening. We can attempt to make it our first thought and experience of the day. We can try to know that we breathe before we know anything else. Can we see at once the weight of this body, the inevitability and demand of inhabiting this “bag of skin and bones?” Perhaps we could say to ourselves, lying there in bed, “Life begins here.” One way to approach this might be to set a personal “stop” exercise to be implemented the moment we awaken: to stop and precisely sense just how the relationship between breath, body, and mind is. The method I use is to wake up and intentionally settle back in bed, lying on my back with my arms folded, hands on my chest—like a corpse, or an Egyptian mummy—and then intentionally do nothing but sense my breathing and my organism for a few minutes. In doing so, I turn my attention to appreciating how the breath itself feeds the cells in the body—I rediscover the experience of breathing in relationship to the sensation of the left and right side of my body—I remind myself physically that I live in this organism, from the top of the head to the bottom of the feet. Within the breath, I can attempt to discover how “I am” without any “I am.” This “bird gets worm” approach is useful because it’s possible to study the relationship before the majority of the associative parts of the brain get going and contaminate the experience, that is, cover it up with dense layers of thinking. It can be an intensely personal and private moment: this study is all about our personal relationship to ourselves. It’s an opportunity to establish a greater intimacy between the psychological experience we call “life” and the physical experience of our life, that is, the root of the psychology. You may sense you are doing yourself a personal favor if you take a few moments to sense in this manner before letting your feet hit the floor. The act of developing a relationship with breath is an act of friendship towards ourselves. I have observed many times before that we are vessels. What does that mean? Developing a connection with breath, with sensation, is an effort in the direction of cultivating the organic sense of being a vessel. There can be no understanding of vessels until there is an experience of vessels, and that experience isn’t mental. It has to be sought within the rooted nature of the vessel itself. This brings us to the question of attention used as a means of discrimination. New wine—the wine of impressions, of air—cannot flow into an old vessel. Consider this: First, the experience of the vessel itself must be new. If we do not know how to discriminate between old and new vessels, where will we store our wine? And it is above all in the discernment of small, immediate, and practical matters that we can begin to learn how to apply discrimination. Such experience is born not of the concept, but of the moment. So. If we just begin the day knowing we breathe, and that’s all we know, it’s already a big thing. Go for it. May your trees bear fruit, and your wells yield water. Life in Work
On the road in Ningbo. It's been a long, hot day. While in the airport this morning, I pondered as follows: How can our inner work become a living thing? This is—or at least ought to be, don’t you think?—a vital question for almost everyone. The perennial complaint: we don’t remember ourselves; we don’t remember our work. We trudge along on the hamster wheel of life. The mind—the whole mind, not just that part that formulates—isn’t strong enough to remember to work. Sleep is a powerful thing. But what is this “mind” that isn’t strong enough? And can we will ourselves with this “mind” to become strong enough to remember our work? Can we “do” that? Which mind needs to become mindful? The question is related to the living presence of sensation—the organic sense of being—and the act of awareness in breathing. These are parts- “personal assistants,” if you will—that can awaken within our effort, so much so that one cannot forget one’s work. Then life divides itself into two channels, or streams: --one in which the idea of work, the wish for work, and the physical awareness of work are always present, --and the other, which deals with the mechanical, habitual, and day to day requirements of business and society. On this business trip I’ve had occasion to study the conditions within both these streams of existence. They do not have to remain separate: conjunction arrives, they blend together, one and the other, so that there is both work in life- as it is called in the Gurdjieff work—and that even more important thing which no one ever speaks of— Life in work. It’s damned interesting, how we have—more or less—never heard that phrase before, isn’t it? Think it over. If there is no life in our work, how can there be work in our life? Can we agree? A psychological work is a dormant work. Something else has to happen. Our work needs to become an actual living organism in its own right. Not a machine we kick-start that sputters and dies the moment we stop paying attention to it. There are parts within us that want to participate in our life, but which we have little or no contact with. Parts that have a wish every bit as great as the one that brought us to a path, but don’t know how to connect with this formatory element we call “ourselves.” Parts that want to help us work. These parts aren’t getting enough food. They are not getting the right kind of food. Hell, they can’t even find food. Other parts—particularly the negative ones—are literally eating their lunch. If they are nourished, however, they can awaken and bring a whole new level of effort into our work. A deep, ongoing effort to find and help connect the centers within, to discover the threads that bind our inner state together, can help these parts reach the surface and participate. I firmly believe that the reason Dogen emphasized the relentless practice of Zazen was that anyone who sits diligently enough, for long enough, cannot fail to begin to notice these parts.
Once noticed, they can be encouraged. Once encouraged, they will assist. Once they assist, things change. I am reminded of Gurdjieff’s explanation of the four personalities, which is found at the beginning of his lecture in the last chapter of Beelzebub- “From the Author.” Three of the four personalities comprise the intellectual, emotional, and moving centers… Wait a minute…
Yes, that’s right. Each of these centers a being in its own right, just as intelligent, active, capable and versatile as the other, -- a person--yet think about it—the only part we generally know and experience as a person is the thinking part. There are implications here. Questions that need to be asked about just what we are, and why we do not know fully two-thirds—or (read the chapter) perhaps even three quarters—of what we are as persons. If we begin to know the moving center through sensation, and it awakens, we discover an ally that is often stronger than sleep. And if we discover the emotional center—if we open our inner flowers—well then, that is where a real work truly begins. We can discover within this work a joy, a satisfaction, an understanding and a gratitude that is unobtainable in any other manner. Our inner work can—wants to—become love and joy, folks. It wants to live. It’s in there. May your trees bear fruit, and your wells yield water.
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