absorption

Absorption as a meditative state is used in Sufism and can make time more enjoyable. It involves being fully attentive and involved in a task, even if it's repetitive or not particularly enjoyable. Playing music or finding ways to make the task more bearable can help. If you enjoy what you're doing, absorption comes easily. Absorption is similar to awareness or mindfulness in meditation. The speaker gives an example of using a scythe to clear weeds and how it becomes a form of absorption. Many jobs can be like this and pass quickly if you get involved. Employers value this because it makes workers more capable. However, absorption should not be used in situations where someone is being exploited. Cooking, walking, and other repetitive physical actions can also be forms of absorption. Being attentive is important in order to do it well. Running, for example, can be absorbed in, and each experience is different. The purpose of absorption is to observe the mind as it is absorbed in anothe Hi everyone, I thought I'd talk today a little bit about absorption. Absorption as a meditative state is used more in, for example, Sufism, where the idea of work-related effort, so a repetitive or something that you can get very much involved in, whatever that is, is a way of making the time more enjoyable, it just goes, because you can be attentive and you have to be attentive to what you're doing. So it doesn't really matter what the task is, if it's one that you don't particularly like, for example, if you're working in a factory, that's quite often a repetitive type of involvement, and it's far better to become totally involved and absorbed in doing that as well as you can, and that works quite well. People will play music while they're doing a repetitive task, or some other way of augmenting what they're doing, or making it more bearable if it's a difficult situation. But if you're lucky enough to be doing something that you enjoy doing, then the very process of absorption is very easy. This is similar to the idea of awareness or mindfulness in meditation. So the best way of thinking about it is, I'll give you an example, when I was working on a market garden, and we had to clear some grass, I think it was grass, that's right, we had to clear some weeds from underneath a long hedge, and we were given a scythe, now I'd never used a scythe before, so it was a learning experience for me, but as soon as you get into the swing of things, and as soon as you get into the repetitive nature of using this scythe, it becomes a form of absorption. You absorb yourself into the practice, the thing that you're doing. So that would be an example of being totally absorbed in the process, the repetitive action that you're doing. And a lot of jobs are like that, and they pass very quickly if you get involved in them. They can be very simple tasks, and this is why the employers are so keen on teaching this particular aspect, because it makes the people who are working for them actually more able, and more, well just able, they're more able because they're actually involved in the work, they're not trying to slow it down, they're just doing it at the pace that is being dictated to by the environment. And so you have to be aware of that. Sometimes it's not always the best idea to use absorption in situations where you're actually being exploited by someone else. You will understand what I mean by that, I hope. Anyway, that is an example of absorption, but there's many other ways of approaching that. It may be cooking might be your particular thing. Walking, just going for a walk is a very good example, and walking meditation, we've talked about that before. Any form of repetitive physical action is a form of, or has the capacity for absorption. In order to do it well, you have to be attentive. If you're walking over very rough ground, for example, you have to be attentive to what you're doing. If you're doing running, this is quite an interesting thing, if you do running as a form of repetitive action, if you like, that you get absorbed in, you will find every time you go running, even though you're doing a repetitive action, the running experience is different every time, so the absorption is different every time. There is no such thing as it's always the same, because the mind is always to a degree active, and part of the reason for doing this, or enabling this experience of absorption, is to watch the mind as it is absorbed in some other process, and see what arises. Okay, that's all from me for today. Bye now.