Many of us have tasks and responsibilities in our life that we often find tedious and and times even painful.
I assure you although difficult at first, many tasks even as simple as sweeping a walkway or shoveling a driveway may hold the key to revelation.
What I want to propose is the difference between two ways of carrying out these at times, seemingly tortuous tasks.
There is a way of work that only deals with doing, and a way of work that deals with contemplation and meditation during the execution of the task.
The following koan is a story that shows the benefits that can be gained from contemplative work.
The Maha Thera
“There was a middle aged woman who had been working at a monastery for many years. She swept the grounds, helped cook food, attended to the relics and shrines, and the other tasks that were in need of attention.
For half a decade she provided service to the monastery with the hopes that one day she will be taught about the path of the monks.
With great patience day in and day out she carried out her tasks, but at the end of each the day no master came to teach.
One day after a particularly challenging workload her patience grew thin.
She felt as if she was fooled into being a willing slave to the monastery.
She stomped to the front of a large group of chanting monks and right up to one of the maha thera and with great frustration voiced her concern.
“I have given you almost three years now, working for you day in and day out, slaving to keep this monastery an appropriate place of contemplation. None of you have done so much as to even try to point me to the path of the monk."
The old, willowy monk looked up at the frustrated woman with gleaming eyes and a humble grin.
“By now you should have learned much about the path we follow, you have been slaving to give us a place to contemplate, but have not allowed time for contemplation yourself, give us one more day, and you shall have the answers you seek.” the short maha thera replied. The woman considered the monks proposal and decided one final day was not much upon three years of work.
The next day, while working in the garden, she was called inside by one of the monks to remove a shattered window from one of the sleeping quarters.
Inside she found the maha thera that she had conversed with the night before standing in the room.
The maha thera spoke “How clumsy I am, while I was dressing myself I backed my elbow into the window and shattered the glass, would you help me?”
The maha thera and the woman hunched down to pick up the glass.
The woman spotted a single piece of glass on which a dragonfly was perched, a rare insect to find at that time of year.
She brought the piece of glass to eye level to show the monk and at that moment on one side of the glass saw her reflection and on the other saw the old maha thera peering and grinning at her through the glass with twinkling eyes.
At that very moment the woman had been enlightened.”
This woman learned a wonderful lesson about herself through the work that she was growing tired of doing.
We can all learn something from this koan by treating the work we do as an opportunity for transformation.
Today, I discovered something of seemingly revelatory proportion today through the art of contemplative work.
The previous day a large blizzard had covered the entire driveway of the shop I worked at with snow.
I was assigned to shovel the driveway as to allow customers to pull in with minimal trouble. For what seemed like hours and hours I struggled with moving the snow.
With every bit of snow I tossed I grunted and groaned, rationalizing the meaninglessness of this tedious work.
I fought with it long and hard and after many cuss words and much stress the drive way was finally cleared.
The work had left me in a rather sour mood the rest of the day.
The job had to be done right, every bit of pavement needed to be clear of any ice and snow or I knew I would be sent right out.
Furthermore, and still without understanding I was also required to shovel the street as well.
The pointless adding on of work understandably left me in loathing of my occupation.
As luck would have it the following night had brought yet another blizzard and rendered all my hard work from the day before void.
Once again I was assigned to snow duty and proceeded once again to shovel the walk. This time however, I tried something different.
I decided to use this time I had while shoveling to contemplate the nature of who I was.
I had recently participated in a labyrinth walk and likened the long slow steps of the walking meditation to the repetitive action of shoveling snow.
A meditational labyrinth walk is and interesting metaphorical walk through life and the spiritual journey, it is unlike a maze as a labyrinth, as long as you do not stray from the path, leads to the center and then back out, where as a maze is intended to trick and confuse the participant into losing their way.
My labyrinth journey consisted of a heel to toe walk in 80 degree weather.
Each step included one repetition of mantra. After I completed around one thousand mantra repetitions I reached the center drenched in sweat and feeling triumphant.
The feeling quickly faded as I realized the journey was only halfway through, to truly be bodhisatva, one must travel back out through the labyrinth.
Upon the completion of about a quarter of the driveway I started to notice something. The macrocosmic view of the snow blanketed the driveway as one single substance, however in a matter of a fraction of a second my vision switched to a microcosmic view of individual snowflakes each patterned with uniquely intricate fractal crystal lattices.
Then the metaphor hit me with the force of an inter-consciousness ballistic missile.
I was looking at a model of this entire existence.
Each individual flake represented each manifestation of the universe, I could point out small variances and characteristics of each snow flake, but realized at the same time it all originated from the same substance.
A substance which allowed for the creation of individuality.
I was looking at a model of the universe which existed through the creation of itself.
It was the creator, in a way I was looking at god, I was looking at myself.
By the time I was halfway through the driveway I was chuckling hysterically at the Idea that I was god shoveling god.
At this point the snow was gliding across the driveway effortlessly.
There was no struggle, no grunting, no cussing, just the calming sound of my shovel drifting over the pavement.
I was completely relaxed, calm and content.
At this point I could have easily dropped the shovel and wander off into my ecstasy never to be seen again as a pratyeka would have.
I decided against this, this is not compassion, walking away and forever leaving samsara is seeking something that is excluded from impermanence, this is futile, nothing lasts.
So I chose the way of the bohdisatva pulled my mask back down with a grin and joyfully continued to shovel the snow until the driveway and street was void of one single flake of snow.
Looking back at my work, I was filled with satisfaction.
As I was walking back inside I noticed it had once again began to snow, I looked up at the gray clouds, shook my head and chuckled once more before heading inside.
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Orgone Conclusion...Bringing OTD to PS&P since 2007.
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