Can I Be Present and Pay My Bills at the Same Time? | Eckhart Answers

People spend years trying to figure out what Zen is all about in monasteries and still can't figure it out. And this Zen master says, doing one thing at a time, is that it? Yes. Well, that stops your mind. Another question here about daily life. Those are very useful questions. Everybody. They are basically everybody's question. How do you balance just being on a moment to moment basis all the time with having to make a living and paying bills? That has been the only difficult part for me. How do you balance just being on a moment to moment basis all the time? All the time with having to make a living and paying bills? That has been the only difficult part for me, yes. In other words, how do you balance or bring together being and doing? Otherwise you can only experience presence and being. When you are sitting absolutely still or you are not being disturbed by anything. That's fine too. At least you have it then. But it's not enough. So as you rightly say, the question is a good one. How do you balance that with paying bills and so on? In other words, activity in daily life. How can you have that awareness in your daily activities rather than lose yourself in the doing? Well, as a practice, any practice that we now talk about presupposes that there is a minimum of presence in you. Because without that, you can't practice. If there is a minimum of presence in you in any situation, then there is something that you can do. And a minimum of presence or awareness means you are not totally lost, but you can be aware at the beginning of an activity so that you don't get drawn into it so totally that you lose yourself in it. And usually it means the future becomes more important than the present moment. That means you're becoming lost in doing. That's a good indicator. The future moment becomes more important than this moment and you need to deal with that. So as a conscious practice, you can do. What do I need to do now? Okay, well, you mentioned paying bills and having to make a living. Whatever it is that you do, the present moment, is it a means to an end for you? Or are you honoring the doing in this moment so that it is not primarily a means to an end? Are you trying to get to the future moment more than you want to be in the present moment? That's usually the case with unconscious living. And usually people are stressed because of that continuous movement of the pull of future, which is no more than the pull of a thought of future, because there is no future out there. I've never seen it. So the future is the thought of future. So the balance between being and doing is done by being present in the doing, by giving your fullest attention to the doing, rather than believing that you need to get to the end of the doing. Give your fullest attention to whatever your activity is in your daily activities. Don't make it a means to an end. That includes any human interaction. Low quality human interaction. We've all experienced that Low quality human interaction is when you meet a human being who is treating you as a means to an end. And so you become reduced to. If you see somebody in a restaurant, you become reduced to a customer and so he's not a human being. If you see a doctor, you become reduced to a patient. He doesn't see you unless he's aware or she doesn't see you. You become a patient, you become reduced and only wants to get it over and done with the person who's trying to sell you something. To this person, you are a means to an end. He or she wants to get to the future moment where the sale is completed. If you refuse to go along with it, and you are not going to buy what he is offering, he is going to be in a negative state. And the negative state in him is already present even while he is talking to you and still wanting you to sell something. Because there is a strong desire for you to finally come to the end of it already. He is using you as a means to an end so that he can get to the future moment where he thinks he needs to be. And you can feel that. And you can feel that this is not a high quality human interaction. And a lot of interaction between humans in our society is of that kind. Because they are all just wanting to use the other in their desire compulsion, compulsive desire to arrive at the future point where they need to be. So life gets reduced to something unpleasant, superficial. Nobody is really. Nobody is here, they're not there. So instead of demanding that these people should change, of course it needs to start with you. Don't make this moment into a means to an end, because it's precious. It's all you ever have. And whatever appears in this moment is precious. It's the form that this moment takes. So if you're with another human being, it's a precious moment. It's the form that this moment takes. Don't make it into a means to an end. Honour the form of this moment. Honour this moment. So if you're dealing with another human being, let's say in business, you're honoring this moment, you're honoring this Human being, you give. In other words, you give this moment your fullest attention. You give the other human being who happens to be there at this moment your fullest attention. Your attention isn't 50, 60, 70% in the future where you want to be. No, it's here completely. And then if you're a waiter, you will see that your tips increase a hundredfold. If you give every guest your fullest attention and not treat them as a means to an end, if you're a salesman, you'll be extremely successful because the people will love you, because everybody loves to be given fullest attention. So you realize the second it's second the situation, that every life situation is secondary. Whatever it consists of is secondary. Primary is your practice of presence, attention, of awareness. So you use whatever life gives you to do, bring that element of attention to it, of aware, presence, and do it with infused. The doing becomes infused with presence and it shifts. If you think, if you thought your job was boring, well, there was most likely not enough presence in the doing. Even menial jobs, you can become transformed through presence. I have occasionally witnessed, not very often, people at a toll booth where cars stop. Every few seconds a car stops and they say, two dollars, please. Now, one would think that's not an interesting job where you can be present, but very rarely. Once or twice in my life, I have seen somebody there who emanated awareness or presence. And everybody was everybody who stopped there, every driver was given fullest attention. In that moment, the words didn't matter. Thank you. $2. Thank you. Have a nice day. But the energy behind it. Again, what we said earlier, situations are secondary. Whatever happens, they are all. So treat your whole life as an excuse. Whatever situation arises, it's an opportunity for bringing the dimension of presence or awareness in. Don't believe that the situation is what absolutely matters. What absolutely matters is your state of consciousness. Secondary is what you do. In other words, who you are or what you are. Your state of consciousness is primary. The doing flows out of the being. It's a practice. Daily life is spiritual practice. One way of talking about what is Zen? One Zen master simply defines Zen as doing one thing at a time. That Zen, you can't get a more simpler definition than that of people spend years trying to figure out what Zen is all about in monasteries and still can't figure it out. And this Zen master says, doing one thing at a time, is that it? Yes. Well, that stops your mind. And then what's left? What's left for you to do is doing one thing at a time not be over there, but be here. Be present in the doing. And already you are practicing presence. One thing at a time. This fullest attention to this one thing. There's only this moment. And this moment then becomes different. It changes. Its quality changes from low quality to high quality. The doing changes. The relationship changes to high quality. High quality. What I call high quality implies there is the awareness becomes part of this situation. You bring in a new dimension. It.