Gareth Young's Bohemian Lifestyle

Instructions for Cleaning and Dusting

From ancient times, in communities practicing the Buddha’s Way opportunities have constantly arisen for members of the community to serve the sangha. In our community we are fortunate to have three positions with responsibility for cleaning and dusting so designated. This is, indeed, a rare opportunity for you to undertake sincere practice of the Buddha Way.

This cleaning and dusting is a significant responsibility that must be performed with great diligence throughout the whole Zen Center to ensure that the facilities are always clean. Accordingly, it is necessary for the three people tasked with this assignment to closely coordinate among yourselves to ensure that the work is evenly divided, affording an equal opportunity for each person to serve the community. To enable this coordination, personal telephone and email information is available on the task board in the kitchen, and through the task coordinator. The majority of the cleaning equipment is stored in the porch next to the kitchen, though the vacuum cleaners are stored in the cupboard just outside the bathroom.

You should note those areas of cleaning that are the responsibility of others, such as the bathroom and kitchen, and be aware that it is your responsibility to keep the remainder of the Zen Center in a constant state of the highest cleanliness and tidiness. To accomplish this, please identify those areas that are most frequently used and most heavily trafficked, particularly the main meditation hall and the vestibule. These areas should be inspected several times each week, and areas of dirt and dust immediately cleaned, using appropriate means, including the vacuum cleaner, a damp cloth, cleaning chemicals, or washing. These rooms should be dusted and vacuumed as frequently as their condition merits, but in any case no less frequently than once per week.

The ancillary meditation hall is used at least weekly for newcomers instruction on Sunday morning, and it should accordingly be inspected and cleaned to ensure that it is in the greatest level of readiness for instructing honored guests. In the same way that your true mind dwells in a place beyond, yet acts with complete equanimity as the ever-ready host of your conditioned self, so should you strive to create an environment of complete calm and tranquility within this room to act as the host for guests of the sangha. This principle should be applied throughout the Zen Center and your practice, but is particularly important when providing for newcomers instruction.

All other areas of the Zen Center are frequently used, and should therefore be frequently inspected, and cleaned at least once per week. The fact that they are less heavily trafficked than those identified above means simply that they need cleaning less frequently, but in no way diminishes the importance of that cleaning being conducted properly and at regular intervals. The following comment by Dogen on cooking applies equally to cleaning the Zen Center:

“When making soup with ordinary greens, do not be carried away by feelings of dislike toward them nor regard them lightly; neither jump for joy simply because you have ingredients of superior quality to make a special dish. By the same token that you do not indulge in a meal because of its particularly good taste, there is no reason to feel aversion to an ordinary one.”

Applying this to your current circumstances, you should treat all rooms with equal importance, and all cleaning tasks in the same spirit.

Dogen also said,

“These things are truly just a matter of course. Yet we remain unclear about them because our minds go racing about like horses running wild in fields, while our emotions remain unmanageable, like monkeys swinging in the trees. If only we would step back to carefully reflect on the horse and monkey, our lives would naturally become one with our work. Doing so is the means whereby we turn things even while simultaneously we are being turned by them. It is vital that we clarify and harmonize our lives with our work, and not lose sight either of the absolute or practical.”

You should bring this spirit to your cleaning efforts, paying great attention to the task at hand, and becoming one with it, but not losing touch with the overall relationship of that task to the responsibility to keep the Zen Center clean, and to more mundane concerns such as your tiredness or hunger, and other responsibilities that you have, both inside and outside the Zen Center and the sangha.

In performance of this cleaning and dusting you should work one room at a time, making a small bow both to each room in turn, and to your tools before commencing and after completing the task, and should adopt the principle of working from the top to the bottom, and from the outside to the inside within that room. In working from the top to the bottom, you should first remove any cobwebs or other dust and dirt from the ceiling and other high places using a broom covered in a duster. You should then apply the duster to such surfaces as bookshelves, windowsills, door frames, altar and tables, always remembering to work from the top to the bottom, and equally always with sufficient presence of mind to inspect all surfaces and identify areas requiring particular attention, such as sponging a stubborn patch. During this working from the top to the bottom, we can constantly apply ourselves inwardly to the working away of the multiple layers of our ignorance, accumulated over countless eons, and laid on top of each other; we are dusting away the layers one at a time. It is in this spirit that the following teaching of Joshu should be understood.

Having worked down from the high to the low, we can now work in from the outside to the inside, just as in our practice, as we follow our thoughts with increasing concentration, they naturally come gently from their wandering among outside objects to an inward still point. In the same way, we apply our physical body to cleaning the room, first by sweeping the places where the wall and floor meet into the center of the room, then sweeping and vacuuming under chairs, tables, and the like, moving these items where necessary, and finally using the vacuum cleaner to collect all of the dust and dirt so pushed into the room, and to clean the remainder of the floor.

Having brought the room to a state of serenity and purity, you are now ready to come out of that environment into the remainder of the Zen Center, in preparation for returning to the outside world, in the same way that when the mind is brought to the state of tranquility that it sees itself, you should prepare for a return to the marketplace.

In all of these efforts, you should constantly be aware of the environment, neither losing sight of the task at hand nor of its larger context, and in this manner should identify those areas requiring tidying and sorting, such as a vase of dirty flowers requiring disposal, or untidy books or papers on a shelf. However, you should not feel the need to obsessively tidy such areas as the library kitchen, which are the responsibility of other people. Rather, perform such tidying in these areas as you regard as essential, without interfering with the responsibilities of other people. You should pay particular attention to tidying the sitting rooms and the vestibule, since this tidying is your responsibility.

As Dogen said,

“How fortunate we are to have been born as human beings given the opportunity to perform these tasks for the Three Treasures. Our attitude should truly be one of joy and gratefulness.”