Laziness and a Nap, a Book, and the Sky
August 23, 2008 Question: What do you do when someone is watching you and expecting you to behave better? If you know you are being watched and choose to be ordinary instead of excellent, is that held against you? For example, being a very relaxed person might be considered lazy and in some situations it would probably be laziness not to do something today and leave it for tomorrow. Being lazy with one's own things verses being lazy with other people's things. How much does being lazy or being an extremely relaxed person get you in trouble? I look at a friend of mine and he is always wired to do something. Whereas that button was not installed when I was made. I look for that button to push that says "okay let’s do this now" and there is silence. So I go for another nap or another book to read. Or better yet let’s sit under the blue sky for a few hours and watch the clouds go by.
Where is the question? Does laziness get you in trouble with anybody else but yourself?
Response: Laziness gets us in trouble with both others and us.
At the everyday level, laziness gets us into trouble with others because we didn’t do what they were hoping we would, what we told them we would, or what everyone knew we should. So we disappointed others or frustrated them. Bottom line: whether a family member, a friend, or a co-worker, our being lazy made things more difficult for them.
From the Buddhist perspective, our laziness can serve as a cause for others to have wandering or negative thoughts. True, others have a choice in how they react to our laziness. But because we are the trigger that leads to their reaction, we have a karmic connection and will undergo certain karmic consequences.
At the everyday level, laziness gets us into trouble with ourselves because we didn’t do what we knew we should. So we feel guilty or irritated or anxious. Or we question what it is doing to us.
From the Buddhist perspective, laziness again gets us into trouble, this time because instead of doing what we should to progress toward awakening, we’re wasting time in wandering thoughts and pointless activities. Here we are, in one of those unbelievably rare lifetimes when we encounter the Dharma and have all the right conditions to be able to practice, and what do we do with this rare and wondrous opportunity?
We take a nap. We read a book. We stare at the sky.
We tell ourselves we have plenty of time. We tell ourselves that we’ll chant later this afternoon. We tell ourselves we’ll listen to that Dharma talk sometime tomorrow. We do what is easy, not what is wise. We give ourselves excuses. We’re lazy.
And we do ourselves an unimaginable disservice as we fail to take advantage of this rarest of opportunities.
So with others and ourselves, in matters small and large, laziness gets us into unimaginable trouble and does us great harm.
Reader Comments (3)
Thank you for your teachings,
sincerely,
anybody
It is my opinion that time taken to rest and enjoy the clouds is excellent for healing and appreciating the glorious beauty in the world. It feeds the well of inspiration and gratitude.
We are human "beings" and do not need to be human "doings" all the time. There is no need for guilt about enjoying balance in life.
Smell the flowers, imagine the shapes of clouds in the sky and "count all the bees in the hive", as Pooh would say. Enjoy and savor the true moments of life. I think there is wonderful karma in that also.
Sue K.
Resting when our body needs to is necessary. But as the Buddha cautioned one of the Five Desires that are so dangerous to us is sleep. So resting, as with everything goes to intention, Do we honestly need to sleep? Or are we just being a bit lazy.
Also, it seemed to me, the questioner was not talking about the sleep necessary to keep the body healthy but rather about "another nap."
Looking up and enjoying the beauty of the clouds, likewise goes to intention. And priorities. As readers have noticed, I have a tendency to look out windows. As I write this I am in Toowoomba, Australia and am sitting in front of another window. When thinking I look out the window and enjoy the view of some trees and a bit of sky. To focus my thoughts, looking out the window is helpful. To get caught up in looking out the window would result in my not getting my work done. So it's also a matter of balance.
The reader who asked the question was talking about laziness, so it seemed she wasn't talking about the agreed upon benefits of sleep or gazing at the sky for some wonderfully tranquil moments of simply being. She was also asking about laziness getting us in trouble with others. Napping and gazing at the sky at the wrong time can definitely get us into trouble with others. ;-)