Practicing at Home

Practicing at home is not always easy, but it can be quite enjoyable when we know how to enjoy it, and how to keep the practice going. At first, I experienced mental drainage. I felt that my mental energy run out very fast and I often felt the need to recharge through meditation. That is also one of the pull to meditate – to recharge myself.

In my first week at home, I was doing very well. Everyone welcomed me home. I was treated as someone special, and I was listened to attentively. However, all this changed in the second week, because somehow, our workers just didn’t come for their shifts. There are three shifts for the workers: morning, afternoon, and evening shift. If there is more than 1 person absent in 1 shift, we ourselves have to take over her duty to ensure that we can deliver on time. As a result, since then we have all been very busy. There is hardly any time when all of us can sit down and relax. Hence the discussion session is temporarily called off.

In such time when the workers are absent and the machines were not running well (one couldn’t be operated for a few days), the tension was high. Work has to be the first priority (that is the rule of the house), so the already-planned discussion session was called off. I was disappointed then, because I thought the discussion session was the opportunity for me to share with my family, and also to allow them the chance to load their mind with positive things, to counter the more-often-negative things they receive from the TV and from the high-tension work environment. This incident led to more disappointments, but it’s not a bad thing after all. In the end, I learnt to re-adjust my approach. Instead of trying to do something formal and so visible, I can just be present, be with them, and at the same time, not be like them. What I mean is, whenever everyone is angry and starts shouting at each other, I should maintain my calm. Otherwise, there is no way I can help the situation. I have promised myself and my family that this time I’m going to give my time to them. I mean it and I really want to realize it. So I told myself, “I will just give myself, no matter what it takes”. This thought saved my day. The new approach helped to make me feel more relaxed and just go with the flow. This desire to give myself takes away concern for myself and instead places the concern on others. While doing this, metta flows. To my pleasant surprise, the whole day I felt that my mind was in a good state, I felt very calm and at ease, no matter how busy I was outwardly. Metta becomes my secret weapon.

Also through experiencing disappointment, I learnt to unplug myself from it, to understand what disappointment is, and to find the main cause of it. Hence, it becomes a learning experience too.

It is sometimes challenging to give myself completely. Sometimes I want to do my own thing. Being an introvert, I like to spend time with myself. So I have to struggle between giving up or keeping my ego. =) This is a good learning.

That should be enough to summarize my experiences at home. It’s nowhere near the life at Brahma Vihari, but I can either appreciate it and have a good time, or fret about it and live miserably. I choose the former.