#1282 - it's just playing
Playing is the ultimate spiritual practice.
You can observe it in children. When they play, the boundaries between worlds vanish like magic. Matter and spirit, reality and fantasy, language and culture barriers, past, present and future, are all fused and transformed through the act of playing.
When we become adults, however, we start playing the same way we work; to win, beat the competitors and get a trophy. Or, when there's no competition, it becomes a mindless practice to distract and amuse the mind.
Yet, through his many research and studies, the famous psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi discovered that we reach the state of flow when we invest ourselves in autotelic experiences, that is, experiences that we do for the sake of the action itself rather than for ulterior motives.
Isn't that exactly how children play?
What would happen if we added a little more playfulness to our lives? In particular, in our working environment.