Awareness in Buddhist Meditation

96
Habits
The formation of habits is not something to be controlled if they are
thought to be habits, neither to be encouraged if they are considered
good habits. Habits are never good, and thus a substitution of
a bad habit by a good one is no solution. Habits are repeated
actions, actions going in grooves, which make work so much easier
and safer. One does not have to learn playing music which is piped
out from a tape-recorder or cassette. One does not have to steer an
engine which goes on rails. One does not have to make long and
complicated calculations when there is a computer to do the job
much quicker and more efficient.
But there is more to a habit than sheer ease, comfort or laziness.
There is the sensation of security in following the lines of routine,
following millions of others, endlessly repeating the nine good qualities
of the Buddha, or the salutation of Mary by the angel, of the
mantra of initiation by a guru, or praising the uniqueness of God
and the greatness of his prophet five times a day.
There are the common actions necessary in commercial life,
starting to work together as the cog-wheels in a machine, cooperation
between the various branches of organisations, without
which social life would grind to a halt within hours. And there are
also the individual actions, initially controlled and intended, which
have become habits without our knowing it, nervous habits and reactions
which have become characteristics.
Thus, the question arises: Why should I develop a habit? It does
not matter what that habit is: biting one’s nails, smoking, listening
with my mouth open, fiddling with my fingers, and 1001 nervous
actions and reactions which have no meaning and yet have become
habits, to which the specialists have given beautiful Greek names.
The specialist will analyse the habit and perhaps discover a hidden
source or factor in my childhood. But those are interpretations,
whereas I want to understand what a habit, any habit, reveals;