How can we practice mindfulness while working?
Someone asked Osho: How can we practice mindfulness while working in an office, shop, or during any task? If we focus on meditation, how can we work? What is the place of mindfulness in our work, and how can we practice it?
Osho replied, A few things to understand:
Mindfulness is not a separate process. When you’re eating, it’s not something that interferes with eating. If I tell you to eat and run, you can only do one task. If I ask you to go to the office and sleep, you can only do one. Mindfulness is not a competing process.
You can eat while being mindful or without mindfulness. Mindfulness will not obstruct eating. The meaning of mindfulness is simply that while eating, your mind should not wander. Your mind should be fully focused on eating. If your mind goes elsewhere while eating, you become unconscious of the eating process. You are eating, but your mind is in the office. Your body is at the dining table, but your mind is in the office, so you are neither in the office nor at the dining table because your mind is not present.
The process of breaking this unconsciousness is mindfulness—keeping your mind fully present in the activity you’re doing. Let the entire world disappear, leaving only the small task of eating. Your entire consciousness should be focused on this one task.
When you are preparing your food, or while you are eating it, be aware of every step; be aware that you are lifting your food, bringing it to your mouth, and chewing your food. Perform every task with complete awareness. Your entire attention should be on eating. Understand this difference. If I tell you to chant any shloka or verses while eating, two activities will happen: chanting and eating. Chanting will distract you from eating, and focusing on eating will break your chanting. I’m not asking you to go elsewhere; just make the current activity your point of focus.
This won’t create any obstacles in your work. In fact, it will help. The more attentively you work, the more skilful you become. Work efficiency depends on attention. If you’re working attentively in your office, your efficiency will increase, your capacity will grow, the quantity of work will improve, and you won’t get tired. Your energy will be preserved, and you’ll return from the office feeling fresh.
When the body does one thing and the mind does another, tension is created between them. This tension is fatigue. When you’re physically in the office but your mind is in a movie theatre, or when you are physically at home but your mind is elsewhere, the distance between mind and body exhausts and breaks you.
When your mind is exactly where you are, you feel refreshed. Notice how when you play any sport, you return feeling energized. Physical energy is spent, but you feel fresh. The difference between work and play is that, in play, your entire attention is present, while in work, it often isn’t.
Skilled people transform their work into play—meaning they do their work with such deep attention and joy that nothing else exists outside of the doing. You’ll return more fresh, and your skills will increase.
Whatever we do attentively becomes more skilled. But many people misunderstand attention as forced concentration. If you forcibly drag your mind to a task, you’ll get tired. Then attention itself becomes a task.
Don’t make mindfulness a burden. Don’t make it stressful. Develop it lightly; support it. Whenever the thought comes, practice mindfulness. If you forget, don’t worry. When the thought returns, practice mindfulness again.
Discover More Wisdom
If you decide to do your work mindfully, you won’t achieve it today. It might take years. Maintaining awareness for even a moment is difficult. You might decide to walk mindfully and fail after two steps. Don’t be anxious or regretful. Millions of lifetimes have habituated us to unconsciousness.
Don’t be sad. We’ve cultivated unconsciousness. Whenever you notice your mind has wandered, bring it back joyfully. Don’t feel guilty or pained.
Don’t think this is impossible for you or that you’re weak. Even great spiritual masters started exactly where you are. The end result looks impressive, but their beginning was just like yours.
Like a child learning to walk—initially he is unsteady, he keeps falling, then he starts crawling—you too will progress. If a child became discouraged seeing others walk, he will never learn.
If in 24 hours you can be mindful for 24 moments, you’ll become enlightened. Don’t expect more. Gradually, your capacity will increase.
Don’t turn mindfulness into a task. Many religious people make mindfulness so burdensome that it increases their anger. They become irritated and want to abandon tasks that disturb their concentration.
A practitioner needs patience. With patience, even a shop or an office can feel like a supportive forest, and a home can become more meaningful than any ashram.
Effort is necessary, but don’t make that effort a burden. What’s truly important in life becomes available through patient, effortless practice.
The real truth is we can achieve anything in life, but impatience becomes our obstacle, bringing sadness, disappointment, and despair.
Be content with even one moment of mindfulness. One moment is enough. Tomorrow, two moments might be possible. Remember, only one moment is ever in your hands.
If you can be present in one moment, you can be present in an entire life. The seed is always with you—the ability to be mindful for one moment.
A person walks one step at a time, not leaping miles. By taking one step, you can eventually walk thousands of miles.
The first step is half the journey. Whoever understands the secret of the first step understands the science of walking.
Take each step, free each moment from unconsciousness. Do whatever you do with awareness. Make the task itself the object of meditation.
Mahavira and Buddha’s method is unique—they said, don’t create a separate stream of consciousness. Whatever is happening, focus your awareness there. Don’t create duality.
Be mindful while walking, sitting, eating, bathing, or performing any other task—be mindful in life’s smallest actions. This won’t obstruct your activity but will increase your skill, and awareness will develop alongside it.
One day, you’ll find your entire life is a flame of awareness.
