A Lesson in the Laundry

I was dust­ing the book­shelves in the yoga stu­dio, when a book slipped from its rest­ing place and fell at my feet. When some­thing like that hap­pens, I always take the book down, open to a ran­dom page, then read the para­graph in the mid­dle to bot­tom of the right page. Call it a super­sti­tion or idio­syn­crat­ic quirk, but I’ve always felt this was the Big G send­ing me a message.

On this day, it was a book by med­i­ta­tion mas­ter Jack Kornfield. What I read was this:

“What became clear is that spir­i­tu­al prac­tice is only what you’re doing now. Anything else is a fantasy.”

The book – and the quote – made me smile, remem­ber­ing a day-long silent retreat I once par­tic­i­pat­ed in at a monastery. The monks led us through plen­ty of seat­ed and walk­ing med­i­ta­tion, but I was also intro­duced to the idea of samu, a spir­i­tu­al prac­tice from Zen Buddhism where devot­ed atten­tion is giv­en to menial tasks. As part of the prac­tice, we were assigned tasks like car­ry­ing fire­wood, weed­ing the com­mu­nal gar­den, or sweep­ing floors. We were direct­ed to do so with our head and heart as well as our hands. Samu is a prac­tice that ben­e­fits the com­mu­ni­ty – what the yogis call seva, or ser­vice – by respect­ing and bet­ter­ing the scared space.

And while the prac­tice is tra­di­tion­al­ly about work­ing with a peace­ful and gen­er­ous heart, it is of immense ben­e­fit to the indi­vid­ual as well. By immers­ing our­selves in each moment of our lives, we embody our lives more ful­ly. Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us to wash dish­es with the same care “as we would wash the Baby Jesus.” To wash dish­es mind­ful­ly means to do so with inten­tion and focus, con­tem­plat­ing the sen­so­ry expe­ri­ences of the act. In this way, we notice the warmth of the water, the tex­ture of dish­es, and the smell of the soap.

Researchers at Florida State University asked stu­dents to explore the pow­er of inten­tion and atten­tion while wash­ing dish­es. They encour­aged half of the stu­dents to focus mind­ful­ly on the sen­so­ry part of the expe­ri­ence. The oth­er half read a para­graph about the impor­tance of fin­ish­ing the job. Afterwards, stu­dents that prac­ticed “mind­ful dish­wash­ing” report­ed a decrease in anx­i­ety by 27 per­cent and an increase in cre­ativ­i­ty by 25 per­cent. The con­trol group didn’t ben­e­fit at all.

So when the monks explained samu, it res­onat­ed deeply. Less wor­ry and more inspi­ra­tion sound­ed good to me. I could already feel that warm, soapy water, could imag­ine the deep spir­i­tu­al con­nec­tion I would feel to the food and the cooks that had pre­pared the meal as I washed up. I imag­ined work­ing along­side some oth­er equal­ly enlight­ened being. Our eyes would meet and we would share a know­ing smile as I hand­ed over a clean dish to be dried. I was going to be the most mind­ful dish­wash­er this monastery had ever seen. I sus­pect­ed I might even be called up to speak direct­ly with the head monk, once he noticed my hum­ble devotion.

And then the work assign­ments were hand­ed out, and I got… fold­ing laun­dry. Hell. No. 

I don’t mind vac­u­um­ing or clean­ing out the fridge or even scrub­bing toi­lets. But if there is a chore I absolute­ly despise, it’s fold­ing laun­dry. Fitted sheets are the devil’s work. Laundry is bor­ing and seem­ing­ly nev­er done. I swear to you that I can wash, dry, and fold three loads of laun­dry – requir­ing no few­er than sev­en hun­dred trips up and down the stairs to the laun­dry room in our base­ment – and there will still be dirty clothes wait­ing for me in the ham­per. I was total­ly pre­pared to be mind­ful­ly at peace wash­ing dish­es. But laun­dry? I groaned inwardly.

But that’s the prac­tice, isn’t it? Samu brings what we learn on the med­i­ta­tion cush­ion, yoga mat, or church pew into our lives. When we do one thing but think about some­thing else, we divide our effort and cre­ate suf­fer­ing. I like to say that now stands for nev­er over­whelmed. But being awake to the now takes effort and commitment.

So I fold­ed laun­dry and tried to do so with atten­tion, curios­i­ty, and detach­ment. I hung the wet tow­els on the line, fold­ed the dry ones neat­ly. I smelled the clean tow­els, felt the rough­ness of muslin blan­kets, lined the edges of the dish­tow­els per­fect­ly, enjoyed the sim­plic­i­ty of stack­ing small­er items on top of larg­er ones. I remem­bered that today isn’t always about prepar­ing for tomor­row, but about find­ing the beau­ty and peace in the now.

Oh, and if you were won­der­ing about the title of that Jack Kornfield book? It’s called After the Ecstasy, the Laundry: How the Heart Grows Wise on the Spiritual Path.