Letting Go Of Hurrying

Father Ed Hays, in his book Pray All Ways, offers an ancient definition of the word sin: haste. Bethany's commitment not to sin made a few years back is finally bearing fruit. She shares three ways she has begun to transform the energy of hurrying in her life.

Transcript

Bell Bell Bell Bell Dear Kin,

Today is January 13th,

2020,

And I gathered at Myrtle Fillmore Chapel at Unity Temple on the Plaza.

And so I titled this talk,

Letting Go of Hurrying.

And because it's something I've been working on,

And I feel like we best share what we've been working on.

There's that,

What is it that's saying we best teach what we need to learn,

And I'm learning this right now.

I go back to a book I read years ago,

This would have been in the early 1990s,

By Father Ed Hayes,

The founder of Shantivanam,

Which no longer,

Many of us know Shantivanam from the old days.

And he was the founder of Shantivanam.

And in that book,

He said that there is an ancient meaning of the word sin,

And it meant haste.

It meant to hurry.

And that's,

I don't remember anything really else about the book,

But that stuck with me.

Because when we hurry,

It takes us out of the present moment.

And I guess in a Christian tradition,

Where would you find the love of God in the present moment?

So it's a way we stray from,

We stray from the sacred.

So I announced to the song this quite,

Really quite a while ago,

Maybe even a few years ago,

I don't remember if I was in here or if we were upstairs.

But that I was committing to not sinning.

I kind of shook everybody up a bit and I go,

Hurrying.

And I explained this definition of the word sin as haste.

And I've been working on this over the few years,

And I'm only now starting to actually see the fruit of this practice in my life.

Sister Annabel and David and I were at the European Institute of Applied Buddhism.

She said that Thay,

Which is our teacher Thich Nhat Hanh,

He's patient,

He says,

When he sees someone not practicing.

He says,

It's just not their time yet.

And so I think of that often when I'm just not,

It's just not happening,

When the practice just isn't happening.

It's like,

Okay.

Thay would just look at me and say,

Oh,

Not her time yet.

Whereas,

You know,

I judge myself or judge somebody else,

Perhaps.

So I want to share a few ways that I've progressed on this path of not sinning and not hurrying.

Our November retreat,

The one we just had here at Merillac Center in Leavenworth.

One of the things that really hit home for me at that retreat was that I don't get these kind of causes and conditions for practice on an everyday basis.

So I really wanted to make the most of it,

The most of every breath and the most of every step.

And since that retreat,

I've had more success at walking mindfully throughout my day.

And I'm going to share a few throughout my talk,

I'm going to share a few quotes from the Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh.

And here's one.

He says,

Many people are alive,

But don't touch the miracle of being alive.

And my comment about that is that so many of us,

I've been racing,

I'm just going to speak for myself.

I have been racing into the future.

And yet I wonder why sometimes I feel something's missing in life.

Like,

Where's the fullness?

And that's because,

As we say,

As Thich says,

It's not there because life is available only in the present moment and you've been racing through it.

And so for me,

This has required a shift in perspective.

And so I'm going to give an example.

If I needed to take a bathroom break,

At work,

I would hurry to get through it so I could get back to what was important.

And so how many of you have thought like that?

And the question is,

Why is taking care of our bodily functions less important than work?

And perhaps it's related to some cultural things like that we keep our personal life separate from work.

We sacrifice our personal life and thus our self-care for work.

And I think we all need to look deeply into these ways of being that are embedded into our culture because I think they're harmful.

And I'm not going to share my thoughts on that right now because I want to give you time to contemplate why.

Why is it that it's for so many of us less important?

And what I realize is that also is that when I hurry to take that potty break,

What I'm doing is I am transmitting that energy of hurrying to my work,

To the people I work with,

And to my physician,

To my patients.

But if I walk mindfully and do my business and walk mindfully back,

I transmit freshness and calm and solidity.

And I transmit that instead of the scattered energy of rushing.

It's a much different energy.

And it's really a gift that we can give each other.

We can just give a call.

For me,

It's a practice.

It begins as a practice of mindfulness in the body because I literally feel this sense of forward momentum right here in my chest.

And when I get ahead of myself,

When I get ahead of the present moment,

When I get into the future,

When I start to hurry.

And for a long time,

Though,

You guys,

This was my way of life.

This pull.

And I went,

You know,

How about you?

I don't think I'm alone.

But then once I sense that,

It's like,

Ah,

Stopping,

Calming.

And I literally almost feel it like coming back into my body.

And then I have to go back to,

OK,

Why was I?

Why was I getting ahead of myself?

Why was I in a hurry?

And that takes us into mindfulness of feelings,

Mindfulness of our perceptions and whatever.

Something was pushing me forward and looking into that.

Thich Nhat Hanh,

He says,

If while washing the dishes,

We think only of the cup of tea that awaits us,

Thus hurrying to get the dishes out of the way as if they were a nuisance,

Then we are not washing the dishes to wash the dishes.

What's more,

We are not alive during the time we are washing the dishes.

In fact,

We are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink.

If we can't wash the dishes,

The chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either.

While drinking of a cup of tea,

We will only be thinking of other things,

Barely aware of the cup in our hands.

Thus,

We are sucked away into the future and incapable of actually living one minute of life.

Don't do a task in order to get it over with.

Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way with all your attention.

Enjoy and be one with your work.

Just one sound of the bell.

Since the Omaha retreat,

I made a commitment to the practice of two hands,

Whole heart.

Michael Saborsky taught this.

He said,

Two hands,

Whole heart is the practice of the fine manners that the monks and nuns practice that make the ordinary sacred.

Monks and nuns have so many rules that they have to follow.

They call it fine manners.

He said that two hands,

Whole heart is a direct transmission from Thai.

All you have to do is watch how he drinks tea in a video.

Does anyone remember how Thai drinks tea in a video by in the videos?

Or if you saw him teach?

He picks up the tea.

Two hands.

Now,

He does it with his full attention.

And Michael says the meaning of two hands,

Whole heart is one direction,

Not two at once.

Now how many times are we trying to do not two at once,

Three at once?

We all know the science that it's really a myth that you can multitask.

And it's so unusual to drink tea with two hands.

And I had this memory of being a little child.

I have no idea how old I was and being told that you're a big girl now.

You can hold your cup with one hand.

So it was like I was grown up now and only the babies hold it with the two hands.

And which is I thought fascinating because so much of this practice to me feels like going back to that period in childhood.

Free from it's like letting go of the restrictions or the box that I sometimes feel like I can get in with adulthood.

Yet at the same time,

It also feels like like ripening and maturation and awakening into the fullness of who I really am.

And bursting out of the box in a different way,

Which is kind of growing up as well,

Growing up so we can go become free as a child and as full and full and ripe.

So what I love about this two hands whole heart practice is that it stops.

It makes me stop and be fully present,

Not just to the tea,

But to my body,

To my mind and to my surroundings and who I'm with.

And at work every day in the afternoon,

I always drink two cups of tea and enjoy it two hands whole heart.

And I also do my best to apply that daily activities such as like washing dishes and bathing.

Trying to do with listening.

I can't say I'm still working on that one.

And I have a long way to go to succeed at one direction,

Not two at once.

But I'm trying.

So a question I have for you is,

What can you commit to do in the spirit of one direction,

Not two at once?

The last practice I want to share is a practice that David and I have long standing.

We've done together long standing.

And it's the wake up Gata,

The morning Gata upon arising.

It goes like this,

Waking up this morning,

I smile.

24 brand new hours are before me.

I vow to live fully in every moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion.

Now,

Like all of these mindfulness verses,

Gata means mindfulness first.

It's a very deep teaching.

Before we hurry,

Before we get ahead of ourselves,

We set the tone for the day.

We stop and we smile.

So I get up in the morning,

I sleep with the mask on because I'm just my strategy because I'm not a very good sleeper.

And I take off my mask.

I roll over towards David,

I take off the mask and you know what I see?

Smile.

It's the best thing in the world.

We stop and we smile.

And then we acknowledge the miracle of 24 brand new hours and the opportunity to begin anew.

The day is gone,

The future hasn't come.

The only moment we have to act is right here,

Right now,

In the present moment.

And we can begin anew in every single moment.

And that right there makes me smile.

And then we set our intention for the day.

To live fully in every moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion.

And if I didn't live up to my intention as much as I would like,

Then Lord willing we have tomorrow.

There was a woman that used to come to our farmer's market.

She always said,

See you next week,

Lord willing.

Because it acknowledges the impermanence of our existence in this form.

Just like I shared with the ladies,

The miracle of walking.

And you never know when you might not be able to walk.

It could just simply be a half a second slip on the ice.

And so acknowledging this impermanence also provides motivation for me to practice diligently.

And sometimes I need a reminder.

But it's still a good motivation.

And so I have some questions for Dharma sharing.

And the first is,

What activities in your life are a nuisance?

Just to get over with so you can get on with the important things in life.

What's the root of this for you?

Number two,

I shared that I experienced hurrying as this forward momentum and energy in my chest.

How do you experience it?

If you're not sure,

Practice with it and I'd love to hear how you experience hurrying.

What can you commit to do one direction,

Not two at once with two hands,

Whole heart?

And finally,

How do you start your day?

Do you set an intention?

And if so,

What is it?

So let's enjoy three sounds of the bell.

Bell.

Bell.

Reviews

Oh what a way way of being! All my life I’ve rushed from one thing to the next trying to get things done. I had it that the faster I could get one thing done, the faster I could get to the next, and the more that I could do, the more I’d be guaranteed success.
In retrospect, my happiest times have been when I was... in the moment, simply enjoying who I was with, and where I was.
Thank you for the reminder!!!

Equally enjoyable and useful talk. Helpful personal ideas, and suggestions for further thought.

Logged on to listen to this teaching at a moment when I needed to hear the most. I am grateful for your words and your calm presence. Namaste 🙏

Very relatable and super helpful. Seems so simple. Just slow down. Thanks so much for your insight.

I love this idea of being present with two hands, whole heart! Thank you!

Thank you for sharing. I have two hands on my phone and one intention - gratitude. 😊

Very relatable to me as a healthcare worker. ... Learning that my body consists of much more than thoughts to hurry and check off tasks. My bladder, stomach, dry mouth, aching back AREN’T nuisances. They are present-moment happenings that I have learned to take pride in ignoring as I take care of others. I will try to become aware of using both of my hands and my heart starting in this moment and hopefully many more moments after. ☕️✋🤚❤️🌅

This was great to listen to because I’m always in a hurry to do so many things that when it’s time to enjoy the main things in my life they slip by so now I know. Thank you 🙏😊😊

Excellent! Just what I needed to learn!
Thank you!!!

This was so wonderful, I didn’t want it to end! I found myself feeling a bit of regret that I ‘hurried through’ the different stages of my children-who are now adults. But, regrets are living in the past. I have 24 new and wonderful hours to live life with intention! Thank you, Bethany!

Gems! Thank you!! 🙏🏽

I found I didn’t want your presentation to end ... thank you for the insight and inspiration. Namaste 🙏

Super super thanks so much 💖