Replacing Crazy with Wisdom

Finding Peace in Dishwashing

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One of the really great things about practicing mindfulness is that at any time, if I have been distracted and captured by the ups and downs of life, I can take refuge in pure awareness. Just now, realizing I was rushing through the dishes (putting my last intact wine glass in jeopardy), I paused for a moment and looked at the closest thing at hand, the white-painted door of the kitchen wall cabinet just to the right of the sink. Nothing special; just a simple shaker-style cabinet door. I just stood quietly and looked closely.

I allowed my mind to calm its chatter. I saw the smooth texture of the painted door, a creamy shade of off-white, the nickel-colored cabinet knob at the bottom edge, and a sense of real security washed over me as I took comfort in my own quiet center. This is a different security than the one we hunt for in permanence, possessions, love and acceptance, praise and success and talent and savings accounts. It’s real security because it’s a recognition that right here and right now I am whole and complete and need nothing, that my strivings and fears and emotional angst are minor stresses, merely the inconveniences of having a body and a mind, both of which are impermanent and not the big picture.

What the big picture actually is, is hard to explain in words. It’s just something you feel when you recognize everything that it is not (self, mind, body, desire, suffering as well as happiness: all these things that will come to an end sooner or later). Thich Nhat Hanh would compare it to the water if you were a wave. Shunryū Suzuki calls it big mind, as opposed to small mind. Others calls it Nirvana, intuitive awareness, or the unconditioned. (Oh, and of course, Christians call it God, or heaven). It is what you were before you were born and will be after you die, but guess what? It is also what you are right now.

We can do this—take refuge in pure awareness—at any time. It’s just a matter of stopping and looking. Noticing the breath. Observing the quiet, despite all the noise that may be cluttering the space around us. Perceiving that space. It penetrates and encompasses everything.

Of course, it’s not long before the chaos of mind and of daily duties reasserts itself, but for that brief moment we’ve touched the real stuff, the eternal reality that is big and open and of which we are an integral part.

With some dedication to practicing the art of stopping even more (i.e., some form of meditation and/or mindfulness practice of one’s own), this recognition of our true nature, the great open, unconditioned, nonjudgmental free space that is, but also encompasses, our bodies and minds, our ideas and opinions, and all of nature and existence, becomes more and more easily accessed. It becomes our daily refuge. Our quiet center. Our peace.

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Always a Pleasure