Participation

I had a dentist appointment this week and I was noticing a pattern in my dental hygiene efforts.  I go in and the hygienist says I need to do more (floss more frequently, use the rubber tip thing, etc.).  So I commit to being more dutiful and consistent.  And, lo and behold, the next time I go in, she says how great everything is looking.  So then I slack off.  And, no big surprise, on my next visit, she is once again saying that my gums need more attention.  And it just goes back and forth like that.

I have noticed this before in relationship to various injuries I have had.  I do a good job taking care of it and helping it heal and then as soon as it starts feeling better, I think I don’t need to do all that anymore (instead of thinking that what I’m doing is really working and I should keep doing it).

Our topic this month at The Samarya Center is tapas, which translates literally as heat and refers to the effort, determination, sacrifice, discipline that is required for our spiritual practice (it also includes a sense of enthusiasm and zeal).  It seems like part of my attitude toward hard work is that I just want to do it long enough so that I can stop doing it.  I suspect that many of us have some version of a love-hate relationship with work.  Our whole culture is telling us to work, work, work while simultaneously also giving us a message that we shouldn’t be working so hard and deserve a break.  It’s very confusing.

My actual experience most of the time when I am working at something is that I enjoy it.  Even flossing my teeth—when I am doing it, there is no problem—despite all the conversation beforehand about how I don’t want to do it and don’t have time.  That last part is when I really catch on to the fishiness of the the whole thing—I don’t have time to floss?  I have one of those electric toothbrushes that times me.  The full cycle takes two minutes.  My dental hygienist has recommended doing two cycles in the evening.  And more often than not, I don’t do it because it will take too long.  Really?  I don’t have an extra two minutes to brush my teeth?  It’s absurd.  Which is handy because then I can start looking out for that same process in other places.

So my thoughts on tapas at the moment are about keeping up the things that I am doing that are working (rather than saying, “oh good, that worked, now I can stop”) and watching out for false arguments trying to convince me not to do something.  It seems like it might be helpful to focus on the enthusiasm part of tapas to remind me that there is nothing wrong with work.  I’m thinking that a different word might be helpful too.  Cheri Huber often talks about participation.  Brushing my teeth is not work, it’s participation in life.  Maybe tapas is remembering that I actually want to participate in my life. 

(I don't want to use this blog for advertising, but I'm doing a retreat on Sunday at The Samarya Center that is related to this:  Yes! Being in the Flow of Life.  There's still room)