The Monastery

After my weekly teacher discussion, my assignment this week is to take 7 minutes in the morning, then again at lunch and, finally, at the end of the day and simply be aware of what is going on around me at work.  I have found this to be a very interesting exercise.  Most of the time, when we meditate, we are focused on some aspect within ourselves - our breath, a mantra, a visualization, etc - but this exercise actually requires me to focus out.

The result of this work is that a sort of silence seems to fall around me once I settle and it seems to me that my awareness spreads out around me like a pool.  I am acutely aware of the tiny sounds that we usually discard as minutiae - the soft scuff of shoes on carpet, the co-worker muttering to themselves several cubes down, pencils scratching on paper, the whirring of the copy machine as it sits in standby.  In addition, there is a feeling of pressure as people move through this "awareness field", almost like a boat making a bow wave in water.  I am betting that, with a little practice, I will actually be able to identify people by their "bow wave". 

While the results of the exercise are fascinating in themselves, I find that this exercise, with its enforced time regimen, reminds me of the days of my monastic interest where the Liturgy of the Hours wove a constant thread through each day, providing a structure for the waking hours but also requiring strict attention since the Hours changed from day to day and week to week.  I once knew a Benedictine sister whose favorite metaphor for a life governed by the Rule of Benedict and its commitment to the praying of the Hours was that of a garden lattice which provided the structure for a plant to grow up toward the sun. 

Perhaps I am in the process of constructing my own lattice . . .