The Zen master, the cleaning lady and the vase.

A STORY: The old Zen master Hakuin the abbot of Kukai monastery decides to go visit his old friend Shotsu. They have been friends for over 60 years and he is looking forward to spending a week together. Just before Hakuin returns Ami, the little old cleaning lady decides to clean his room so that it would be ready and prepared for him. Ami adores Hakuin who could be very very kind but could also be very very fierce when necessary.

She moves her way around the room vaccuming and dusting the shelves and book cases. She gets to his desk and decides to pick up his favourite vase to dust. This vase is a lineage heirloom - being handed down to him from his master, and from many masters before. Hakuin would at times just sit and look at the vase in wonder at its beauty.

As she is dusting it she drops it and it smashes on the floor into a thousand pieces. Just at that moment Hakuin returns from his vist away, Ami turns towards him with horror and fear on her face. Hakuin looks directly into her eyes and says, "Don't you worry me dear, I got that vase for pleasure not for pain." He walks over to old Ami and bends down and helps her pick up the pieces.

I really love this story and I was reminded of it only this week. I got my partner a new iPad and found myself playing on it and really liking it. Then of course I realised one iPad wash't enough for our household so I bought myself one. 

Anyway my partner took hers to London and when she returned I could not find her iPad. I thought she had left it on the train. The next morning however she knew exactly where it was. 

I realised two things here. The first is that I did not respond as graciously as our friend Hakuin - I was a little peeved that she may have lost it, but all this was going on in my head, she hadn't lost it at all. The other thing I realised is just how pain is the shadow of pleasure. Whatever is a source of pleasure, in the blink of an eye - or in the belief of a thought - can become a source of pain. This does not mean that we don't possess the objects of the world but we need to look closely at our relationship to them.  

The image of a stick came to mind. There are always two ends to a stick - you cannot have a stick with only one end. Pleasure and pain are similar. It seems to me that they are like the two ends of a stick - you pick one end up and the other comes with it. They seem inseparable. 

I realised the best I can do is not carry the pain longer than I need to - what I need to do is to learn to let go of it again and again and again.

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Mindfulness and opening the second door.

Imagine there is a room with two doors. Door A is always open door B is normally closed. Imagine also there is a queue of people at door A entering into the room. The people never stop entering, the queue is moving constantly, so as you can see at some point it starts to get over crowded. At some point it gets very claustrophobic and sooner or later even the walls come under strain. I wonder what happens next in your scenario? 

As you may have guessed the room represents ourselves. The open door A represents life and life never stops happening that is why the people never cease entering the room.  The closed door B is our unwillingness to experience life as it is. I am talking here mainly of the more painful emotions such as, fear, anger, sadness grief etc. We close door B because we feel life is too much or that there is something is with feeling like this. 

Mindfulness Meditation is not about trying to close the first door so we don’t feel anything unpleasant, it is opening the second door. All experience wants simply to be experienced for a duration then allowed to pass away. This is healthy and brings an ease of being and a joy to life.  However, we tend to make a problem out of emotions that seem threatening. We don’t like to feel sad for example because we may appear weak, or it seems to point to something being wrong and life not going our way. So what we do when they show their little heads is to try and shove them back down again, we close the door on them. If we keep closing the door on our emotions at some point the “walls” will come under strain and – well we know what may happen next. 

We open the door by turning toward our emotions and allowing them space and keeping the door open so they can pass on.  Sadness for example is a natural response to some events in life and actually “season our soul.” Sadness opens our hearts to allow others to enter. Through experiencing sadness it connects us to others because the wisdom of experience shows us that we all suffer sadness. Sadness and pain are not some sort of mistake, they are essential - if they was no pain and sorrow they would be no connection and compassion.

They reveal our common humanity. If we close the door on sadness we remain locked away in our own little experience of life and experience emotional claustrophobia as a result. 

When we shut out sadness and other experiences we also shut out something else, and that something else is joy and happiness. Most people think that if they keep hurtful or sad feelings out of awareness that they will be well, but this is not the case. To experience the joy of being we need to be able to experience the sadness of being to. The beautiful words of poet Kahlil Gibran, say this much better than I ever could, "Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears.
And how else can it be?
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?
And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. 

Some of you say, "Joy is greater thar sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."
But I say unto you, they are inseparable.
Together they come, and when one sits, alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. "

So as the poet says, we cannot have joy without sorrow - they are inseparable. Our work with mindfulness is firstly to observe how we turn away from painful emotions and allow the thoughts to run rampant. We can then take our attention away from the thoughts and into the felt experience of the emotions in the body. Opening the door means to experience life moment by moment whether it be joy or sorrow - because they are the same.

www.mindfulnesscic.co.uk