I have never thought of
myself as lazy, as a matter of fact I busy almost every moment of every day
with things that I feel ‘must’ be done. Even with all of the efforts not a
moment goes by that I can’t look around and see other things that need to make
it onto the ‘must be done’ list.
In part it is that over busyness that has led me to explore
mindfulness. While my kitchen sink stayed very clean all week; a clean that I
appreciated. I found myself avoiding
making a mess to avoid the pressure of taking the few minutes in my busy day to
clean up.
With so many self imposed things to do I have created a
system. A system that provides for a clean kitchen at the end of each day. This
week, leaving no trace meant that every time I went into the kitchen I had to
interrupt my ‘system’ and clean up. I asked myself if I really wanted to be
mindful in every moment or if I value some level of auto-pilot. I finally
realized it was the break in my system that was at the core of my disturbance
not the desire to do it without thought.
In her book How To Train A Wild Elephant, Jan Chozen Bays,
MD talks about the satisfaction of cleaning up and being orderly. She relates
this exercise to life and leaving the world better, or at least with no trace,
from when we entered it. I have often thought that I would like to have a
positive impact on this world during my time here. Something specific, though I
haven’t quite figured out what that is.
Dr. Chozen leaves us with these words of wisdom: First
practice leaving no traces. Then practice leaving things better than you found
them.
Stay tuned for next week’s exercise. Feel free to discuss if
you like.
Namaste
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