Tulsa Yoga Meditation Center, 5319 S. Sheridan, Tulsa, OK 74145
  • HOME
  • TEACHERS
  • Blog
  • PRIVATE INSTRUCTION
  • YOGA TEACHER TRAINING
  • REIKI

TURNING HOUSEKEEPING AND CLEANING INTO MEDITATION

1/24/2019

 
Gesshin Greenwood, author of several books on Buddhism, spent several years living in a Japanese Zen monastery.  There she learned how ordinary tasks of housekeeping and cleaning are, in fact, times of meditation.  She explains:  "Three of those years I spent living and working in a convent called Aichi Nisodo, sharing a room with five Japanese women. We spent all day cooking, cleaning, sewing, and performing ceremonies." 

Greenwood learned that meditation and routine chores are seamless.  Here are some of her insights:

1.  In the monastery cleaning is an act of meditation and a religious art.  " In the convent where I trained there were at least five different cleaning rags, each with its own unique function. The zokin was only to be used on the floor, whereas the jokin, combining the character for “pure” and “cloth” was reserved for cleaning sacred spaces such as the alter. A fukin (pronounced FOO-kin) was used for drying hands. Mixing up any of these cloths at any time was blasphemy."

2.  Neatness and mindfulness belong together.  " I remember one day hanging some tea towels (chakin, another kind of towel) in a haphazard, crooked way and having a senior nun yell at me. “This is zazen!” she screamed, pointing at the crooked towels (zazen, of course refers to Zen meditation). “You came to Japan to study zazen but you don’t realize that these towels are zazen!”

3.  Inanimate objects have Buddha nature because they are teachers.  "For millenia, Zen practitioners have debated whether objects have buddha nature, the ability to attain enlightenment. As the scholar Fabio Rambelli points out, the Tendai and Shingon schools of Japanese Buddhism argued that non-sentient objects such as nature, the environment, and inanimate objects 'exert a salvic influence over sentient beings.' This understanding that inanimate objects hold salvic power spread to Zen and other forms of Japanese Buddhism."

4.  Objects are not mere objects.  The Zen Buddhist approach is to treat all "things" with respect.  Greenwood cites an example from Marie Kondo, a Japanese minimalist expert who is featured on a Netflix documentary (Tidying Up With Marie Kondo) " She approaches cleaning with the basic understanding that “objects” are more than objects. In the Netflix show, she often has families kneel on the floor and “ask” the house for “permission” or “cooperation” before they clean. She encourages people to say “thank you” to clothes as they fold. Over and over, she treats inanimate objects as living things, speaking to them and communicating with them, and encouraging us all to do the same.



Comments are closed.

    Victor M. Parachin ...is a

    Vedic educator, yoga instructor, Buddhist meditation teacher and author of a dozen books. Buy his books at amazon or your local bookstore. 

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.