Service with an Open Heart: Waiting tables as a spiritual practice

What does a bodhichitta look like? One might define a bodhichitta as an armorless heart. Such a heart would be completely open.  It would not be protected in any way from the world around it.  It would be in contact, touching the world as it embraces and appreciates. What better place could a person find to practice maintaining an armorless heart than in the service industry.

Service can be defined in many ways.  The words, in service to others, could very easily conjure images of Thich Nhat Hanh beaming that smile that only he can smile while being in service to the world around him.  This is often not the image we think of when we think of the servers, the bussers, the cashiers and concierges of the world.  I have met many an exemplar person while being handed my change and told the specials of the day, but that is not quite what I was raised to see.

The goal of this essay is in part meant to challenge our assumptions about what service is, and why it might be practiced.  It is by in large a brief story of my own experiences as I began to walk more consciously with an open heart while continuing to work as a waiter.  Walking in the world with an open heart is, I suggest, the goal of service.

 While putting myself through life and school I have had the good fortune to work as a server in some of the finest restaurants in San Francisco.  During this time, my own  life has become ever more devoted to my spiritual journey.  My work as a server has both challenged and encouraged me along this journey, while affording me a context in which I have nurtured one of my favorite practices.  The practice is two-fold.   First, I keep my heart open, without armor (at least I try to).  Secondly, I put myself in service to others while waiting on them. 

This is a rather difficult task, as anyone can imagine who has waited tables, worked behind a cash register, or performed any variety of service related jobs.  Like most things in life, none of this was planned, it is just how my life worked itself out.  The practice of which I am writing here began in earnest when I first started to attend one to two week long workshops while participating in a series of trainings created by Michael Harner and the Foundation for Shamanic Studies.

Each time I would go to one of these week-long workshops I would become ever more aware of the subtleties of life.  I felt my heart exposed to the world, the armor normally encasing it was becoming all but non-existent.  Every little sound or move from another person registered, and often in a painful way.  After my initial couple of workshops I would attempt to contract and protect myself at the first sign of distress.  I had to make it possible to work as a waiter in my day-to-day life, and feeling others people’s pain was often overwhelming for me.

I went off again to shaman camp several more times.  Each time I came back more open.  Each time I was equipped with a few more tools, and a deeper trust in the process.   I was increasingly prepared to sit with the pain of being open like this in the world.

 I recently returned from another foray at camp, and this time I came back more vulnerable, and yet my ability to stay open in the face of day-to-day routine had increased.  Here we come to the point of our story.  Pema Chodron often uses the terms victory and defeat to illustrate how this process works.  Let us start with victory.  I walk up to a table and greet the guests.  The first words out of the customer’s mouth are something like, “What’s wrong with this wine list.  No California wines!  Do you think you are too good for California?”  Victory looks something like taking this in stride.  Basically ignoring that entire string of sentences, smiling as only a person in the service industry can do, and proceeding to placate the customer.  The important part about victory is that in this situation I am not phased one bit.  I have ironclad armor that is rarely penetrated.

Now we move to defeat.  After returning from shaman camp for the first time I find that I am completely devastated by such remarks.  The hurt in the person’s voice almost brings me to my knees.  For days I shake at the very thought of walking into work.  I start to wonder if I can even do the job anymore.  I find that my armor has cracks and the pain is substantial.  There is a good solid year of often hellish work that ensues in my life.  Every day I walk into work, take a few blows to the heart, and by the end of the shift have replaced some of my armor.  After that first year I can start to really see my customers pain for what it is (usually some sort of defensiveness born out of fear), and ever so slowly I start to gain the ability to stand there open hearted in the face of whatever comes my way.  My tendency at this point is still to close and protect, but I am aware of the urge and I can work with it. 

It has been over two years now since I first went off to shaman camp.  I had gotten to a point where I could actually breathe in the various difficulties of my customers.  In practicing this personal version of heart-centered meditation I became able to start to actually stay open most of the time, calmly breathing it all in.  Victory had long been forgotten, but I was starting to feel a lot less defeat as well. 

I returned just a little over a week ago from my most recent trip to camp.  I was pretty shaky the first couple of days home. It was four days later before I went into work for the first time.  I was shaken again to my core.  Visibly shaking, but not because some customer had blown off a little steam in my direction over a late sea bass.  The very act of walking in the door brought me face to face with a level of pain that was much more subtle and much more pervasive.  It was not emanating from any one person, but rather came from the room as a whole. 

I no longer look at these experiences through words like victory and defeat.  This is my practice now, and it is obvious that there has been a shift in my own heart.  Having stripped away some of the more superficial layers of armor, I continue the process.   Now my heart is challenged to stay open at a deeper level as the pain is more ubiquitous and, though subtle, it is more profound.  

This short little story is meant as a pointer, towards a path and towards a way of being the in world.  In service with an open heart.

Note:  This essay was originally written in a course taught at the California Institute of Integral Studies.  It was inspired while reading the essay written by Pema Chodron and cited here.

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