(Follow this link to see the February 2023 Priory Newsletter where this was recently published.)

The Kanzeon statue on the main altar at Unpukuji, Rev. Master Jiyu-Kennett’s first temple in Japan.

When I was just learning to practice the Dharma and meditate, I worked as a line cook for a time. The restaurant was pretty busy and the cooks were under a lot of pressure to work quickly in order to provide food in a timely way for our customers. We were under a lot of pressure to be fast, but also accurate, as we prepared the food and I found it very helpful to put the “every-minute meditation” that we practice into action.

One of the things that I learned from this is that we don’t have to be slow in everything we do in order to be mindful; in fact we can be very fast in what we do. But it is helpful to notice when we get in a hurry, in a rush, since that usually doesn’t help much and can lead to making costly and time consuming mistakes. Oftentimes, when I find myself in a hurry or a rush, it indicates that I am more intent on getting away from the feeling of doom brought on by the fear of not having enough time then I am intent on doing the thing at hand. This also means that I am entangled in some holding on or pushing away.

Of course, one of the consequences of being in a hurry all the time is a wake of messes and broken things that we assume others will clean up for us. I suppose this is a mild suffering but it is a suffering and we often leave it unattended for ourselves and others.

We seem to spend a lot of time in our days grasping after this and pushing away that and we rarely just allow ourselves to settle in our own heart. If we were to settle in our own heart, we might find that we get done what we need to do in the time we have.