Hers: Machine Thinking on Day 18

Day 18 of my 54 day metta practice. I recently came across this passage. It's been at the forefront of my mind the last few days each time I come to sit...

When you are walking along a path leading into a village, you can practice mindfulness. Walking along a dirt path, surrounded by patches of green grass, if you practice mindfulness you will experience that path, the path leading into the village. You practice by keeping this one thought alive: "I'm walking along the path leading into the village." Whether it's sunny or rainy, whether the path is dry or wet, you keep that one though, but not just repeating it like a machine, over and over again. Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness. If we're really engaged in mindfulness while walking along the path to the village, then we will consider the act of each step we take as an infinite wonder, and a joy will open our hearts like a flower, enabling us to enter the world of reality. -  Thich Nhat Hanh; The Art of Mindfulness

Machine thinking...

Machine thinking is the opposite of mindfulness.
Machine thinking is mindlessness.

 

Too often I practice this machine thinking. Machine thinking, doing, and speaking. I do it when I wash the dishes, when I do the laundry; I do it when I'm tired, when I'm irritable; I do it when I'm driving and when I have other things that I need or want to do. I see now, most clearly, that I even do it in my meditation practice, my metta practice. My multi-taking mind can easily have three or more thoughts moving along as I mechanically repeat my metta phrases, phrases that become something like soft music playing in the background. But am I really multi-tasking? Of course not. That implies that I'm actually getting something done as I'm doing it. My scattered mind, my machine thinking and doing mind, in the end, gets nothing done at all, nothing besides having sat in physical stillness for 20 minutes.

 

The purpose of metta practice is to cultivate the spirit of loving-kindness and compassion toward one's self and others. I need to be present in that process for that process to ever occur. Simply reciting the phrases, I'm coming to believe, doesn't really mean a thing. Just like the path leading into the village, to really experience the intention behind my metta phrases I must practice mindfully. I need to pay attention to these phrases as they pass through my mind. I must let all other thoughts come and go, not jump into the cab of whatever thought arises and take off.

Might I then consider each phrase as an infinite wonder?

(May I be filled with loving-kindness. May I be well.)

Might a joy open my heart like a flower as I enter the world of reality?

(May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy.)

 

I guess I'll try again tomorrow.