Whether you are a business executive, technician, or artist, whether you stay at home or go off to work, your life is filled with repetitious cycles. The day begins, you arise, do your routines, morning, afternoon, and evening, go to bed and before you know it you arise and do it all over again. There are weekly cycles, monthly cycles, annual cycles, and more.

It is easy to become bored with the repetition. Some wake up thinking, "another day, more of the same". They go to work habituated, tired, and unconscious. Some thrive on the sameness. It frees them of the fear of change; they don't have to be creative. Even those who have lives in which they are faced with unique circumstances day after day can become stuck in their cycles. Boredom sets in and with it lethargy, depression and poor performance.

Optimal performance is the ability to operate with complete involvement, sufficiently and sustainably achieving often conflicting goals under changing conditions. Doing this requires seeing each moment as a unique opportunity to consciously confront whatever presents itself. The optimal performer is awake, creatively engaging in the activity of the moment. The optimal performer brings a focus and interest to each moment.

Dulled out habitual behavior, seeing each moment as just another repetition in a cycle does not promote optimal performance.

Let's look at the symbol of the circle dance.

Dance, particularly dancing in circles, is used as a meditative exercise in many traditions. The circle can represent a state of endless repetition in which nothing is new. The circle is self-contained and never ending. Yet, in spiritual circles, dancing in circles takes on another more subtle meaning. In the Jewish tradition, there is the idea of bringing newness to the world of habit and tired unconscious repetition.

"Each time around is a repetition, but it is also an elevation. On one plane the pattern is a circle, it is all repetition; on another plane it is a spiral ... .In the very act of exact repetition we discover a new taste, a new creative expression in each revisitation of a point we may think we know already. Looked at from above, there is only a circle. But looked at from the side, each ring moves up and each one is entirely new. Each revolution brings us back to the same point in one sense, but in a deeper sense that point has never been reached before."[1] The circle when looked at in this way becomes a spiral. Chanting and spiritual singing work the same way, they go round and round but the circle leads to a higher destination. 

How do we take this symbolism and apply it meaningfully in the practical world of our everyday lives?

It is our challenge to remind ourselves each day, perhaps many times per day, that we are in a spiraling dance. Practicing insight meditation is a means for doing that. By bringing conscious awareness with a sense of intense inquiry and interest to each moment we transform the mundane to something special. The acts of turning on the computer or washing your hands can become new experiences each time they are performed, if you bring to them this kind of awareness.

By making every act an object of mindfulness we become aware of nuances not seen in previous repetitions. By being consciously aware we can enjoy the movement and sensations of the moment, the water on the hands, the sensation of the fingers touching the keys. As in the dance we become lost in the moment yet fully aware and able to keep our balance and perform the steps in harmony with the other dancers.

In the context of work, the spiral is heading towards optimal performance; learning from each iteration to do it better the next time around. In the context of personal growth, the spiral takes us to increasingly subtle and joyful experiences of each moment.

© 2013 Pitagorsky Consulting  

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