The Monk Who Swept the Same Path
Short story about doing the thing that will need doing again tomorrow.
The monk had swept the forty paces from gate to hall every morning for thirty-one years. In autumn it was hopeless; the maples let go all day.
A visitor watched for three days and couldn't bear it. "By evening it will be covered again. Why sweep?"
"Do you eat?" said the monk.
"Of course."
"By this evening you will be hungry again."
The visitor laughed. Hunger is a need, he said. A path is only a path.
The broom went on, sounding like a slow tide. "When I was young I swept so the path would be clean, and every autumn made me angry. Now I sweep because it is five o'clock, and the leaves and I have an arrangement."
The visitor was given bowls to wash. On the fifth morning he washed eleven of them without telling himself a single sentence about washing bowls — the most peaceful eleven minutes of his year.
Not everything that returns tomorrow is a problem. Some things are simply life, repeating.
Ohananda.com
Zen monastic practice; “carry water, chop wood”
Inspired by Zen monastic work practice (samu) and the proverb about carrying water and chopping wood. The characters and dialogue are Ohananda's own.
Zen places ordinary work at the centre of practice rather than at its edges. Sweeping, cooking and washing are not chores on the way to meditation; they are the same activity with different objects.
The proverb runs: before enlightenment, carry water and chop wood; after enlightenment, carry water and chop wood. We treat repetition as failure. Zen treats it as the ordinary shape of being alive.
Which daily repetition are you resenting instead of inhabiting?
