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A man relates an incident which took place during a ceremony when he was transitioning from a novice Zen monk to senior student. It was considered an auspicious event and he prepared carefully for the ceremony and ritual. He entered the meditation hall with his zen bowing mat and placed it on the floor but noticed there was a small wrinkle in the mat.
Using his toe, he gently tugged at the mat so it was perfectly flat. When the ritual and ceremony ended, the vice-abbott approached the new senior monk, offered his congratulations and took him aside for a private conversation.
“Do you recall the beginning of the ceremony and that wrinkle in your mat?” he asked.
“Yes. I had to straighten it only a little,” was his reply.
Looking directly into his eyes, the vice-abbott said: “Never straighten a bowing mat with your foot. Take the time to kneel and use your hand. Attend wholeheartedly to even the tiniest detail. That ripple in your mat deserved your complete attention.”
From then on, whenever his mat had a wrinkle, he would carefully and mindfully kneel using his hands to gently flatten it. The vice-abbott offered him was an important, lifelong lesson in mindfulness.
For a moment, become your own vice-abbott. Where was your mindfulness absent? For example, when you open and close a door, is it done with intention and quietly? When you pick up and put down an object, are you aware and are you doing that action mindfully, gently. From time to time, take a few moments to study your mindfulness and take it to a higher level.
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