Showing up for what needs doing

 

he Mystery of Perpetual Cleaning

[Music]

Why are we constantly cleaning in Zen

temples in Zen practice? I remember

meeting a lay practitioner who was at

the monastery for a while and he was

totally flabbergasted with the amount of

cleaning. It's already incredibly

immaculate and yet every day without

fail, you're cleaning the same place. Uh

there's hardly even dust to be seen.

What the heck are these crazy guys

doing? I remember another woman telling

me when she started Zen practice that

she didn't even realize that there were

so many places to clean. They really

getting into the nooks and crannies of

every corner. Yikes.

And um without fail just doing it over

and over and over again. Why? Why?

What's the point? And you know, cleaning

is just great p practice already. Um

there's so many things I could say about

cleaning, but why this endless cleaning?

What's uh going on there? So, I love to

kind of compare it to brushing our

teeth. uh you know why do we brush our

Why We Brush Our Teeth Every Day

teeth every day? One, two, sometimes

three times a day. Some people brush

after they consume uh anything

and what is it to kind of arrive

anywhere? Are we someday going to have

like the perfect teeth and then never

have to brush again? No, of course not.

Right? It's this basic upkeep, this tax,

this necessary maintenance we need to

perform to take care of our teeth. If we

don't, they're going to fall out and rot

and fall apart. Um, and yeah, that's,

you know, what a little more easy to

understand. Uh, is the temple going to

fall apart if we don't clean it? Maybe

there is. you know, keeping it nice and

clean. Uh especially in the uh some more

harsh environments keeps the mold away

and keeps things from rotting and keeps

them kind of uh fresh and new. But more

than this functionality,

what are we doing? We're kind of

training ourselves

to showing up for what needs doing.

We as human beings are making quite a

mess. It's nothing new. Taylor's oldest

time.

We've been doing it for generations, and

I have no doubt that we will continue to

do it for generations to come.

If cleaning was in the heart sutra,

there would probably be a line that

said, "There is no dust to clean." And

there is no end of dust to clean. A big

part of Zen practice is doing what needs

doing. And there's an endless mess to be

cleaned up. And not just, you know, in

our buildings, in the temples, um, but,

you know, we have a collective, I don't

like to use the word karma, but this

karmic mess, if you will. You could say

it. It's, um, action and reaction. Uh

it doesn't take a rocket scientist to

look around and see that uh there's a

mess. Okay.

Training Ourselves to "Show Up"

And we kind of want to

[Music]

blame it on someone. Say it's their

fault or this is the reason why we have

the mess or

uh you know it's been like this so we

should just

uh leave it. And that's not helping the

mess.

There's a great story I read in some

book, I don't remember, but there was a

Soto Zen master and they were down in

Mexico opening this new Zen center and

uh soon after that, a dog kind of was

scared and went in the street and got

run over by a car apparently. And the

Zen master upon hearing this said, "Oh,

we'll do a funeral for the dog." And the

maybe head monk at that time asked the

Zen master's like, "Why? It's not our

fault. It has nothing to do with us."

And the Zen master replied almost

immediately, "It's always our fault."

And this is uh ingrained in the

monastery too. You know, it's always

your fault. It doesn't matter if you did

or not. You're there and there's the

mess and you're caught as it were. Um,

and who cares if you did or not. What

needs doing right now is that needs to

be cleaned up or that needs to be fixed

or that needs to be attended to. And you

are there to do it. So, right now, uh,

we're all here and there's a mess to be

attended to and

there's no one else to do it. It's

[Music]

needs. It's inviting

The Story of the Master in Mexico: "It's Always Our Fault"

you to attend to it.

And you're the best person for the job.

We're all the best person for the job.

And so doing this practice, of course,

getting back to the practice is just

really integrating this, internalizing

this into your uh maro, into the very

depths of your bones.

uh that this is what you do. You know,

we can sit on our bums all the time in

meditation and this is great for your

own

uh self-cleaning I suppose but in this

greater world um there's stuff that

needs attending to and how can you we

put away the thinking and analyzing and

fingerpointing and blaming and just do

what needs doing. just clean up that

mess, just make amends with that person.

Uh just care for that other person or

just listen to their story. Whatever

that is, whatever mess there is and

however we can attend to that, just do

it. Just do it. and throw away any

concept that it will ever be completed

or that you will ever finish it or that

there is some place to arrive and then

you can kind of lay back again and

relax.

Just like brushing our teeth, it's a

necessary upkeep, maintenance tax that

you don't have to do, but you are being

invited to do. And when we let go of

this arriving at some completion,

then

I think it opens up

this ability and this vitality to really

just jump into it. You know, it can be

really discouraging that we keep

cleaning and cleaning and cleaning and

then the dust just keeps coming back.

more mess keeps coming. There is no end.

Why am I doing this if I don't see the

results? And so this is really what the

practice is ingraining in us is that

it's not for any result. It's just to do

what needs doing and that's all. Nothing

more needs to be done. Uh just show up.

Just do it. You don't doesn't need any

thought. It doesn't need any completion

or prize or results. It's just there

Dropping the Finger-Pointing Mindset

awaiting your caring open heart and

attention.