The custom of morning prayer and meditation is missing from our modern lives, and this lack is harmful. By setting off in the proper direction in the morning, we can change the character of our day and our life. This should become part of our life, part of our training, whether we are practicing martial arts or anything else.
It seems that in effect, many of us prepare ourselves for our day by first having an alarm go off, either an electronic buzzer or the jangling sound of news, weather, dj’s yucking it up, or commercials with music and meaningless messages pumping into our ears.
Then we prepare our minds for the day by rushing through morning activities — getting dressed, having breakfast, traveling to the office, store or factory. We do not pay close attention to all these steps. They seem to be obstacles to get past on the way to the rest of our day.
This feeling of not doing what we are doing wholeheartedly, but instead just sort of getting through what we are doing in order to get to the next thing and the next thing on the schedule, is a mental habit that infects our lives more and more, if we let it.
We lose our whole lives this way. We may lose them suddenly, by failing to be fully present, mentally, at a moment of crisis, or slowly, by losing all the time we have.
Our time just disappears, and as it does, the things we do are drained of meaning. You do not have to be some kind of tender, passive, pious, sensitive, religious-acting person to appreciate and benefit from making a mental habit of doing exactly what we are doing, when we are doing it, with wholehearted attention, conviction and focus.
An athlete, soldier, surgeon, pilot, musician, and everyone else whose job is demanding, must be able to be in the moment (even though the phrase "be in the moment" may sound like a cliché, we should not let it be deprived of its meaning by trivialization and casual overuse.)
Starting the day with a morning prayer and meditation as part of our practice begins to aim our life toward presence of mind. By placing our attention on our present activity, we make each moment of life meaningful, more and more so as time goes on. In this way, we can begin to condition our mind, just as most of us practice to condition our body and perfect our technique.
We should understand that living in the present moment does not mean living impulsively, living for immediate gratification, or neglecting the future. Planning and preparing are essential functions for human life. Everyone from farmers to monks to generals to kings has to do it. It is no different for clerks, tradesmen, artists, business people, professionals, managers, parents, students, or anyone else.
As Zen Master Dogen, writing in13th century Japan, said in his essay on monastery life called Instructions to the Cook:
"Prepare for tomorrow as the work of today."
That is, when you plan, just plan and have your mind fully in the present action of planning, just as you would have it in the present action of doing whatever it is you are doing at that moment.
Morning prayer in the Buddhist tradition does not consist of only praise, supplication, or the hope to receive benefit from an outside agency beyond our control. It is a complete action in itself. When we place our minds on the wish that all our actions throughout the day will benefit all beings, that wish itself has an effect on our mind and on our actions and on the way we will see the world that day.
It may be a subtle influence at first, but with practice in the sincere aspiration to pursue the benefit of all beings, the effect of the morning prayer and meditation becomes profound. The entire character of our lives changes, and this helps to orient us in our transformative intention every day, again and again.
In his teaching “Virtue and Reality,” contemporary Tibetan Buddhist teacher Lama Zopa says: "No matter how you lead your daily life... if you never let compassion leave your mind, if you constantly keep in mind the thought of benefiting others, everything you do becomes work for the welfare of others."
If we are engaged in bringing our martial training to bear on others through law enforcement or the military, with modern methods, tactics and weapons in immediate practical application of our skills, then it is even more important to be vigilant about our motivation, the condition of our mind, and the action of our body. This conditioning does not make us weaker or modify our ability to act decisively and forcefully. It enables us to think clearly, act wholeheartedly, and to know that what we do is correct. |