A lesson from cleaning the bathroom

A lesson from cleaning the bathroom

Many years ago I read the story about the monk who enlightened when he swept the floor. How come? The master Zen answered, “It’s just that while he was sweeping the corners of the monastery he made sure he was also sweeping the corners of his mind.” (Quoted from The Corners of the mind)

That story stayed in my mind. However it is hard to understand clearly the meaning of the great lesson.

Today I was cleaning the bathroom and I did with a full awareness. While brushing the tile of the bathroom I could understand clearly the message in that story. Cleaning the bathroom is not my favorite work at all, because it is really hard to clean the corners of the bathroom. Most of the time I worked as fast as possible, I knew there were some stains in the corner but I didn’t want to try harder. Now today, I tried harder to clean the corners, I brushed harder and harder, I saw some stains gone but still I could see little stain there. After several time trying, I blamed the brush because it couldn't reach the deeper corner. Then I left the stain there.

It is actually a picture of our mind.  In our life we usually like to clean our big problem or our negative thoughts from our mind.  We try to forgive and forget those bad memories or sadness in life. It seems our mind is clean. Actually it is not really clean we only clean the big surface of our mind, we leave some angers in the corners of our mind. Sometimes that bitterness in our mind is hidden in the darkest corner. Year by year we might forget but the mind is not totally clean.

Sometimes the stain in the corners of our mind could be seen because it becomes bigger and bigger. Then we start to blame the situation or the people. Actually it is our choice to clean the corner of our mind or not.

Today I searched in to the corners of my mind and I could find some stains there. I could see the stains from my angers from many years ago. Now I see, if I want to be enlightened I need to work harder to clean the corners of my mind.

I need to let the stains go…I cannot blame others for this mind.... I just need to forgive myself.

“Know well what leads you forward and what holds you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom.”
― Buddha

**Lina Kartasasmita** Jakarta June 18, 2014 at 4 PM


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