3:54
Satya Robyn reflects on watering hanging baskets outside a temple and notices resentment rising. She examines the beliefs underneath the feeling, about work and worthiness, and describes how paying attention loosened their grip.
Satya Robyn reflects on watering hanging baskets outside a temple and notices resentment rising. She examines the beliefs underneath the feeling, about work and worthiness, and describes how paying attention loosened their grip.
Welcome. This morning I was out the front of the temple watering our hanging baskets. It's been very, very dry here in the UK for many weeks, which we're not used to at all, and we've had to do quite a lot of watering, extra watering, and I noticed as I was aiming the hose at the baskets and the pots, the hydrangea, that I was feeling resentful that the job was getting in the way of my day. And as I stood there with watching the water kind of arc and glitter and fall into the baskets with the— I can't remember the name of those, I always forget the name— petunias and geraniums and a pink one that I don't know the name of. I wondered about whether I could have a different experience of that moment, of that time, that 10 minutes that it took me, and started to notice all of the thoughts that were getting in between me and an experience of what I was doing. I had the, the idea or the belief that what I was doing was not work, that it was getting between me and work, and that there was lots of work to be done. I had the thought that the weather was forcing me to do this extra job, and that that wasn't fair somehow. I had the thought that it was only me that had to take responsibility for the baskets, which is blatantly not true. Somebody did them when we were away, and Caspar often does them, and I could ask people to do them. So these were a few of the thoughts that were getting between me and a clearer, cleaner experience of watering the flowers, and some of those things have very deep roots, especially the 'I must be working' thought or belief is very, very strong in me, and I could get round it by putting the watering the plants into the work category, which would solve it quite neatly and quickly, But actually, it's, it's not a helpful paradigm for me to put things into work or not work and to, to have this idea that I need to do enough work to be worthy, or before I can rest, or to keep everything going. So yeah, interesting to notice all of that. And as I noticed it all, what I— what seemed to happen was that some of it just loosened a little bit, and I could stand there in front of the temple in the sunshine, watching the water arc into the hanging baskets and knowing that I was offering the flowers something that they really needed and that hopefully would keep them I'm looking beautiful for a while longer. So my question is, what kind of beliefs are getting between you and the world, and how far do their roots go down? Thank you for listening.
