We come on retreat to fine-tune the skills of being aware, but the real place to put these skills into action is at home.
When we try to practice at home, we’ll realize that the amount of awareness does not match the kind of unwholesome qualities that arise in the mind. We’ll feel disappointed or we’ll feel like we can’t practice at home.
On retreat, we can feel like meditation is working because we only face a restricted amount of unwholesome qualities. But when we get home, we can’t handle it because the defilements are coming faster than we can manage. We also feel like our practice is not enough.
One of the differences is that on retreat our mind is fully geared to practice meditation – it is like what we’ve come to do. But when we go home, it is no longer our first priority anymore.
On retreat, we keep reminding ourselves that everything is nature. Our business is just to meditate, but at home, everything suddenly becomes ours and then the defilements can come on strong because we’re identified with them.
It is easier to have right view on retreat, but at home, it is easier to have wrong view because identification is our view our entire lives and it comes automatically.
I’m not telling you to reject it, but to notice that identification is coming in strong and that is getting into the way of remembering to practice because we want to set things right rather than be mindful of what is in the mind.
Expect that practice at home is not going to be easy – expect that and be okay with it. Just practice without thinking what it should look like because the awareness is not going to be consistent at home. Just think about following the instructions ‘I’ll try to be aware and if I’m aware a bit, it is good enough’.