Wash the Dishes
What Can I Do In These Times of War, Social, Political, and Environmental Upheaval?
In a recent Everyday Sangha meeting, where we are currently studying The Way of the Bodhisattva, we were discussing the feelings of overwhelm and helplessness in the midst of the violence of war, the ongoing challenges of a global pandemic, and the threats of climate and political upheaval.
Feelings of overwhelm and helplessness can either overcome or numb us. So what do we do?
The Bodhisattva Vows are what we “baby Bodhisattvas” (as Pema Chodron refers to us) try to do. But, in the conventional view of things, they seem impossible. At least impossible for our minds to comprehend.
They are:
Beings are numberless; I vow to free them.
Delusions are inexhaustible; I vow to end them.
Dharma gates are boundless; I vow to enter them.
The Buddha way is unsurpassable; I vow to realize it.
REALLY???!! With our everyday, walking-around conceptual mind we're thinking:
"If beings are numberless, how the heck can I vow to free them? If I can't even number them … I can't find them all … And if I can't locate them, I can't free them … And how can I—this individual, flawed "I" free them anyway??? I can't even free myself from my own thinking and mental story-telling that seems to capture me like some alien???"
The problem here is that we are focusing on the forest and not the tree in front of us.
Pema Chodron talks about it like this:
This is the aspiration of a bodhisattva. Don't worry about results; just open your heart in an inconceivably big way, in that limitless way that benefits everyone you encounter.
We need to do what’s in front of us, without thinking about the results, while we examine our own mind so it becomes a clear filter for an open heart.
In The Way of the Bodhisattva, Shantideva writes that Bodhisattvas must practice “in the middle of the fire.” Pema Chodron explains it this way in her book, Becoming Bodhisattvas: A Guidebook for Compassionate Action - Living the Way of the Bodhisattva in today’s world:
This means they enter into the suffering of the world; it also means they stay steady with the fire of their own painful emotions. They neither act them out nor repress them. They are willing to stay “on the dot” and explore an emotion’s engraspable qualities and fluid energies—and to let that experience link them to the pain and couraage of others.
My Dharma grandfather, Rev. Gyomay Kubose spoke to this in the essay, “Wash the Dishes” from his book, The Center Within, which I am currently narrating in the Words of My Teachers podcast, right here on this Substack. He wrote this about an oft-quoted Buddhist anecdote:
After eating, it is only natural to wash the dishes and clean up. The way of naturalness is the Buddhist way. When help is needed, go and help naturally, without a sense of obligation or duty. Giver and given are forgotten.
Clouds appear in the sky according to causes and conditions. They move on as they should.
This is what we must do: What is natural. What is in front of us. The little things, without ego or pretense. And with an open heart.
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The essay, “Wash the Dishes”, from the book, The Center Within by Rev. Gyomay Kubose:
Wash the Dishes.
A novice monk approached the teacher and said, “Please teach me Buddhism.”
The teacher asked, “Have you eaten?”
The novice replied, “Yes.”
The teacher said, “Then wash the dishes.”
This is a famous dialogue. After eating, it is only natural to wash the dishes and clean up. The way of naturalness is the Buddhist way. When help is needed, go and help naturally, without a sense of obligation or duty. Giver and given are forgotten.
Clouds appear in the sky according to causes and conditions. They move on as they should. Water flows from higher to lower. Man is a part of nature. Why do we not live naturally? When our ego appears, there is so much artificiality and pretension. Yes, life is sometimes hard, very hard. But life must be lived. It cannot be escaped. We get sick. We become helpless. That is life. Face reality squarely and don't be defeated. Don't be arrogant. When it is hard, endure. Help others and be helped. This is the natural way.
When we do things, however small, do them 100%. We do not make many mistakes in the big things of life. We make mistakes in the little things. Life, after all, is little things put together. Each doing should be done 100% so that at the end of the day there will be no regret. A Buddhist life is a life of no regret.
To wash your dishes after you have eaten is a common, natural thing. Buddhism is not something special. Live like the wind. Live like the water that flows. Do everything sincerely and completely. Your life will become perfect. Perfect without any comparisons, for there is no general criterion as such. Every one lives his own true life. This is what the teacher meant when he said, “After eating, wash the dishes.”