Dharma & The Toilet Bowl

Well to further reflect on this program Mindfulness Yoga & Meditation Training at Spirit Rock, this post came to me as I was cleaning. In fact it was while hovering over the toilet bowl, brush in hand that I realized the impact (of my participation.)

I was cleaning up, letting go of an old residence that had taken me through a very harsh winter. See above, an ice storm that hit New England in Dec. 2008, not seen in a generation, that required National Guard, Red Cross water and comfort stations and no power for 7 days to my little cottage. A friend had to cut out a driveway for me, so my windshieldless car could be taken to the shop!
So cleaning up a few days ago, after having moved out my things; there are always too many things, when one has to lift, sort and unpack them…. I noticed because of the mindfulness practice, that I was in fact hurrying, anxious and resenting the tasks. There is a “back story” you see. And it was replaying in my head, “they said…, I said this, what, how could they, I’m right etc. etc…..”

What tore me back to the present, the only place we are really alive in-was the striking contrast in state of mind. You see my job (you get a daily “yogi job,” was to cleaning the meditation hall women’s bathroom, while at Spirit Rock. I did it fairly mindfully, conscientiously without resentment. Yet here I was fuming… so the first Foundation of Mindfulness is awareness of the body, body sensations….And just in that moment, I dropped all the mental arguing, realizing that it did not feel good. My body relaxed and I continued on with the same mundane tasks-sweeping, mopping in a better state of mind… Until the thoughts came back to haunt me, but they did so with less pungency, than initially.

And so the practice goes of putting Dharma tools of mindfulness, and insight into our daily lives. The Buddha’s teaching is not only about suffering but about the end of suffering (unsatisfactoriness, is another translation.) I got to see it for myself for a moment in time.