Breathing

I am breathing today.  Now, I know that I have to breathe.  It is one of those things that you do if you are still inhabiting a physical body but this breathing is the result of something that my Taoist teacher told me the other day. 

 

We were talking about jobs and my teacher stated that almost any job can be made into a monastic opportunity; something that he defined, amongst other things, as living in your nature, supporting a community and practicing kindness.  I have often described my cubicle as a sort of little cave so I thought this would be a great place to try out his assertion. 

 

Accordingly, I have begun coming into work, settling in, turning the computer on and then, before I do anything else, I take a few moments to breathe and really center myself before beginning the day.  I focus on doing one thing at a time, deliberately working at not multi-tasking and, when I catch myself doing several things at once, prioritizing what I am doing and bring things back into line.  I stop periodically through my day, sit for a moment and gather myself, breathing deeply into my center and enjoying that breath. 

 

When I go to the fax machine, I take a moment to look out the window and admire the changing view from the 18th floor of this building.  At lunch, I spend some time in spiritual reading and study of one sort or the other before going on to do something fun like reading Loren Coleman's Mysterious America.

 

This strategy has not been completely successful; I have had some crazy busy days of late where I have struggled to even remember that there is anything outside of work or I have gotten so "into" my practice that I actually felt irritated when people came into my cube to interrupt me. 

 

I am still not quite sure what effect this is having on me.  I will write more when I have a better idea but, for now, I know that the effort seems to be helping me to be a little lighter and more humorous, even when the work is flying thick and fast.