How to Train Your Mind

I recall the scene as if it were yesterday. It was a sunny day in Ottawa, Canada, where I was living at the time, and I was seated at a small circular table at a quaint coffee shop in the city's Italian district. Across the room from me sat a monk, dressed head to toe in orange robes. Light streamed in through the windows in front of me, which made it difficult to see, so I brought my stuff over to a large, comfortable chair in the corner of the room to enjoy a better seat, get the light out of my eyes, and get a better view of what the monk was up to. Every once in a while, back when I was studying for my business degree, I would camp out at this very café with a stack of productivity books and no internet-connected devices. In four or five hours, flipping through as many of the books as I could, I would obsess over all of the ways I could get more done in less time. This was one such afternoon. With a highlighter in hand, a few books in front of me, and a pen at the ready, I jotted down all of the ways I could live a more productive life, soaking in as much information as I could before heading home and going through my nighttime routines. From when I was a young teenager, I've been obsessed with becoming as productive as possible, and for better or for worse, afternoons like this were one part of that obsession. To the outside observer, there could be no greater contrast between what the monk and I had come to the café to do. While I sat hunkered down in front of a book and a notepad, our friend the monk sat across the room, meditatively sipping on his cup of tea. For over an hour, he did absolutely nothing but sip on that tea. I read a book, flipping through page by page, until after some time I had finished a chapter. I looked up, and he had hardly made a dent in how much he drank. After some time, I finished highlighting and making notes on another chapter. His water level fell a bit more, though his progress was nothing to write home about. Some more time passed, and I had made some notes about what I was reading. He drank a bit more, but again, not a ton. He went to the counter to fetch more hot water. Then once more, over the next hour or so, he sipped this new cup of tea as slowly as he had the first. I remember thinking to myself, what a complete and utter waste of time. Sure he might have savored every sip, but he also could have accomplished so much more in that same amount of time. If only he had something better to work on. If he was reading a book about something, anything, he could have been turning himself into a better person. If he was with a friend, he could have been deepening a relationship with someone. If he had been counseling someone in the community, he could have been making somebody's life better. I had something to show for my time at the cafe. All the monk had was a belly full of tea. If I were to go back in time to speak with this younger version of myself at the cafe, it would probably floor him to learn that today, I consider myself to be more similar to the monk than to that young, over-eager business student devouring productivity books. Back then, I judgmentally considered the monk's activities to be a waste of time. Today, if I'm honest, I think the exact opposite. I'd even make the argument that this monk accomplished a remarkable amount during his quiet couple hours at the cafe, even though it doesn't look like it from the outside. In sipping that quiet cup of tea, he was turning himself into a better, more productive person. He was setting himself up to delve more deeply into his relationships by developing his capacity to focus on them later on. And he did have something to show for his time, especially as far as his productivity was concerned, perhaps even more than I did. How could this be the case?