Question

I get really stressed during working meditation. There is time pressure, and I feel people are watching and judging if I am slow or fast. If I am too slow, they have to help me and I feel sorry for causing them extra work. So I am noting tension in the body and trying to understand that stress is impermanent.

Answer

First of all we have to understand that we can be mindful of normal activities at normal speeds. Sometimes people believe that mindfulness can only be possible when we slow down. But when we have a time limit it is very helpful to see that it is an opportunity to do actions and be mindful of actions in a faster way. So perhaps the concept "I have to slow down to be mindful," is causing some of this stress. So if we see, "Oh, this is an opportunity" rather than "This is a pain," we can try to be more mindful in a quicker way. So that we cause ourselves less frustration at that time.

Our apologies if there are any errors in the above text. If anything seems to be wrong or confusing in any way, please feel free to contact the teachers for further clarification.