Monday 15th January

Zen... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes"

Alan Watts, teacher and writer.

This made me laugh yesterday in The Times, an old voice from the 60s making a statement.  Where did all that 'flower power' go?

Pat has brought up the subject of ironing, well I do very little, pressing knitted garments or patchworks is about the only time the ironing board comes out.

But it did bring up the subject of housework, which also I do not do much of.  Paul is the great cleaner, he enjoys it, tidying cupboards into another arrangment which will always make me cross as I go on another hunt for something.

Probably you would say housework or cleaning is a very Buddhist occupation, he loves the meditative sweeping of the paths outside when the leaves have fallen.  In many ways our natures clash, but love binds us, and whereas I love colour and flowers he likes the darker muted colours of the Japanese palette.  

He has never owned a dog till Lucy came into the house but he worships her, not her bad habits, especially her untidiness, sprinkling the newspapers around before we have read them, pulling things off the table, one could make a long list of her 'naughtiness' which has developed as she has got more assured with us.  Like Paul she loves this house, will always hurry back to the gate from a walk demanding to carry her lead for the last few yards before she wees on his lawn much to his disgust;)  This carrying of the lead is also done in pubs and restaurants as she shows off to the company as we are leaving that she is an independent old girl.

This train of thought was struck by an article in the Guardian last week, a Buddhist monk Shoukei Matsumoto explains here, I call it the arrival of a non-thinking non-egotistical mind which is arrived at by the repetitive physical action of the body. Different cultures, different minds.

The day now that it has dawned is miserably grey, more rain, wind and probably snow is foretold for this week.  But the milkman has left on the doorstep another bag of wild bird food, and the little robin's joyous greeting through the blackness of the kitchen windows earlier tells me that buying food for all of them is money well spent.

Edit after Paul read it! an email he sent, forgotten the tale of Trigger's old broom!....

This is my Zen hero Jittoku (Chinese: Shide), a kitchen helper at a Chinese mountain temple. He was befriended by Kanzan (Chinese: Hanshan) who was an eccentric poet of the Tang dynasty (618-906). They both lived on leftover food from the temple's kitchen. Kanzan is usually depicted holding a scroll, perhaps of his poetry or of Taoist wisdom; Jittoku holds a kitchen broom. Both have slightly unkempt appearances and carefree, laughing expressions.

 

Zen, a meditative school of Buddhism, originated in India and was transmitted to Japan through China in the late twelfth century. Kanzan and Jittoku were sometimes regarded among Zen practitioners as incarnations of the bodhisattvas Manjushri (Japanese: Monju) and Samantabadhra (Japanese: Fugen).

 

What they both portray is the belief that enlightenment can be achieved whether one is a scholar or ‘just’ a sweeper. Trigger’s Old Broomsays it all.