Physical Work as Practice

I like physical work. Perhaps it is the place where I first experienced the tranquility of meditation. Not that I was trying. The rhythm of whatever I was doing took me to a different place.

Work is not really meditation in a strictly buddhist sense.

Access to Insight describes meditation as the process of mental clarification and direct perception. Meditation is aimed at overcoming the condition of suffering. The root-causes of suffering are concepts. Concepts result from ignorance and proliferate desires. In essence, the meaning we give to what we sense is a delusion. In pursuing that meaning we grasp at illusions that we expect to be substantial. We will always be disappointed.

Buddhist mediation is aimed at gaining more than an intellectual understanding of this truth. With this understanding comes liberation from the delusion and freedom from suffering.

Robert Pirsig, in describing romantic quality in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, refers to the existence of pre-intellectual experience. One that does not pass through the filters and classifications of our mind.  

Almost any type of repetitive physical work that does not involve active thinking can help create a sense of space. There is generally too much of the task in work to allow mental clarification but the space does allow a more direct perception what I am doing.