A Monk Guide to a Clean House & Mind
Have you often noticed the sense of peace you get after cleaning up the entire house? Lighting up a candle os incense stick and feel at peace in a clean and organized environment. Or even how you get irritated easily after a long day and arriving back home where the dishes and a few chores are to be done. And worst, this irritation so often affects those around you, perhaps people you love the most.
It’s been proven that you are the happiest and have clarity of thought when you are in a clean environment. Many Asian philosophies believe in a few rules and develop their spiritual life. And is about this we are going to talk today and connect with a very “tidy” book that will inspire you.
In case you have ever seen the Zen Gardens that is a clear example of how Japanese appreciate order, balance and the sense of peace you get from it. In Japan, your daily duties are rock solid and more than that, gives purpose and sense of living shown especially on the centenarian blue zones – cultivating “ The Beauty ” around you is more than just tidying up. It is about daily arranging things to self soothe your senses. As if you would show love and appreciation to yourself and family by feeling the lightness in the room, smiling at the beautiful flowers and plants, feel enlightened by ta sweet aroma around the house, feel the touch of clean clothes or bedsheets with sweet lavender spray fragrance. Believe me, you wouldn’t wang to fight with anyone after all this.
A special thing about cleaning and tidying is that you have to arrange a place for things, everything has their place – and you won’t be running around the house searching for your keys, as if your previous-in-a-hurry-self has played you a trick by living the things scattered around.
You also Organize your thoughts. have you ever heard the saying: If your mind is confused and you feel anxious, without knowing where to start, go and organize your wardrobe.
Truly. It works.
So today we will bring you a book to inspire you on your quarantine cleaning days which is called
A Monk Guide to a clean house and Mind, written by Shoukei Matsumoto, an Unsui monk ( a Zen apprentice), here are a few things that you could do to turn house the truest zen place on EARTH.
1- Start in the morning
The monks start right before dawn, they say the sense of peace you get from the fresh air and to be up before other people and plants give you peace of mind. To adapt to your life, make sure you start as early as possible or first thing in your day
2- Clean the house with a Mantra on Mind
As you the monks do their cleaning, they also use the opportunity to also clean their minds by reciting mantras. According to the sacred scriptures, mantras are holy tonic syllabus turned into words that generate a frequency believed to bring purity and happiness to the environment. The repetition of these words clean your mind or unwanted low energy thoughts and prepare you to go and solve with clarity once you get back to it.
If you don’t have a mantra of your choice yet, you also can pray your favorite prayer, or repeat words that make sense to you and gives you a positive vibration while your daily cleaning.
3- Tidy your surrounding at night
Before going to sleep, make sure you leave everything tide up, everything in their place so that you are ready to kick start the next morning. Before going to bed, the monks recite mantras to turn into deep and restorative sleep. You can also meditate.
4- What matters is consistency
Cleaning and tidying are everyday chores, make sure you make it a habit and this will help the body and mind to feel fresh the entire day so you can focus on work and family.
5- Open the windows
The Monks say that the act of cleaning is to communicate with nature, open all the windows to allow the season clean air to enter. Regardless of how much clean the surfaces are if the air around is stale your mind will feel the same hence the importance to allow fresh air every morning.
6- Team Work
The entire family should be working together each with a designated part and task. So each one understands the interdependence on each other’s work. Cleaning brings people together. Divide the chores around the family and change it sometimes so everyone should be conscious of it.
7- Zengosaidan
It’s an expression that means one should put all their efforts in today so we have no regrets. This kicks any thought of living this til tomorrow. No procrastination things won’t get done by themselves and if you don’t do it it will botter you little by little until it becomes unbearable. And a few people go on for years like that and become part of who they are. So Beware. Do what you need to do without delay. To wake up to a pile of dishes from the previous night is not very stimulating, right?
Eliminating the seeds that distract your mind with unnecessary thoughts about things you will be dealing with the next day or should be dealing with yesterday and brings your attention to the present moment and clean the impurities of the heart. According to Matsumoto –“ The longer you neglect the impurities of the heart, the harder it is to remove them. Clean as you are polishing your heart and soul to make them shine the brightest”
What about make cleaning a part of your mindful practice routine?
