The Sweeping Monk

13:29

The Sweeping Monk

Rated

5

Type

talks

Activity

Meditation

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Everyone

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4

Years ago in Nepal, I watched a monk sweep the same stone steps every morning. By afternoon, the wind had usually blown dust and leaves right back across them. So I asked him why he kept doing it. He said, “The wind has its work. I have mine.” That one sentence taught me more about impermanence, repetition, recovery, parenting and spiritual practice than most long lectures ever could. My new talk is called **The Monk Who Kept Sweeping the Same Step**.

Impermanence Repetition Non Attachment Acceptance Parenting Recovery Grief Spiritual Practice Acceptance Of Change Parenting Challenges Addiction Recovery

Meet your Teacher

Kingston, ON, Canada

Meet your Teacher

Kingston, ON, Canada

Transcript

Hey guys, Jason here. So I want to tell you a story about years ago when I was in Nepal. There was this monk I used to see sweeping the same set of stone steps almost every single morning. And you know, When I say sweeping, I mean he really went at it. I mean, Hardcore. This guy was sweeper supreme. You know, He had this, Uh, This kind of this old room made out of like bundled twigs and he would work his way down the steps, Uh, Pretty slow, You know, Pushing dust leaves, Uh, Little bits of grass, Whatever the wind had blown in there overnight. The steps, To me, They look good when he finished. They were clean, Orderly, And then as it is in the Homolius, The wind comes through, Right? And you know, Sometimes it only took 10 minutes, The dust would blow completely back across the stones. Few leaves would come tumbling down and then, You know, By afternoon the place looked almost the exact way it had before you even started. So there he was, You know, Every morning, The next morning, The next morning, There he was again, You know, Sweeping, Same steps, Same wind, Same dust. And I kind of remember him watching him, You know, This one day and thinking, The whole thing looked completely, Absolutely bloody pointless, Right? I didn't say it to him that way, Obviously, But I asked him why he bothered doing it every morning when the wind was just going to basically undo everything. So, You know, He kind of looked down at the steps and then he kind of looked at his broom and then he looked over at me and he said, Well, The wind has its work and I have mine. And uh that was it and he went back to sweeping and there was really no long explanation there was no like mystical speech no lesson on the nature of reality or anything like that. You know, He didn't seem particularly interested in whether I understood him or not. And that thing that he said, You know, The wind has its work and I have mine. Kinda sat with me and I stood there watching him and something about that sentence I don't know, It kind of bothered me, Not in a bad way, But it got under my skin a little bit. I had always measured effort by what remained after the effort was finished. You build something so it stays built. And you clean something so it actually stays clean. You help somebody so they get better. On and on and on. So, You know, That was how I had been trained to see things, You know, Results, Outcomes, Progress, And we do this and then this happens. And if that doesn't happen, Maybe what we did failed, You know, But this monk was, He was sweeping steps that would never stay clean, Like ever. And he knew it. And he wasn't confused about the wind because he had lived there, Right? He wasn't some, He was not like a secretly expecting one final sweep to defeat the dust forever? He swept because the steps needed sweeping. Right now. And to him, That was enough. So it kind of made me think about how much suffering comes from demanding performance from, I guess, Everything is temporary work. You know, We clean the house, We get angry when it becomes messy again. You know, We cook a meal, We eat it, And then we have to cook another one the exact next day or even the same day. You know, We cut the grass and then the grass actually grows back, Right? And we answer emails and then more arrive. We raise children, We go through every stage of their life, And then we have another child and we do it again. There's all kinds of examples. We have the same conversation with someone more than once and think, I thought we already dealt with this or something like that. We imagine that if we do something properly, We shouldn't really ever have to do it again. But that's not really how most of life works. Most of life is general maintenance, Right? Eating, Sleeping, Repairing, Apologizing, Remembering. The mind hates that stuff. The mind wants some kind of finality, Right? It wants to actually finish the lesson, Fix the relationship, Heal the wound, Become enlightened, Get the house under control, Whatever it is. But nothing stays entirely where we put it. The wind itself actually keeps coming. You know, I saw this a lot in addiction treatment. Someone would do super well for months. They'd rebuild routines, Repair trust, Whatever it is. And then something would happen, Right? Whether that be a death, A breakup. Even a bad week, The old person from their using life would then immediately start to show up. And then the dust was suddenly back on the steps, Per se. So people around them would say, You know, I thought he was better. I thought she was better. You know, As though getting better meant becoming permanently beyond struggle. Does that make sense? As though recovery was a floor you kind of washed once. But recovery is sweeping, Right? Sometimes it's every morning, Sometimes it's every hour. You wake up and then the old thought is there again. The craving is there, The anger is there, And you start to have to actually do the work again. You know, It doesn't necessarily mean that yesterday's work was meaningless because yesterday's work got you through yesterday. And we have this strange idea that if a problem returns, Then everything we did before it must be something fake, I guess. You know, You meditate for years and still lost your temper, Right? I guess it must not work, Right? You forgave someone and then all of a sudden they feel angry again. So, You know, Guess you never really forgave them. You found peace and then became anxious. Maybe the peace was an illusion. No, That's all bullshit. Weather changes, Conditions change, Even the mind changes. We all know that. A clean step becoming dusty doesn't prove that it was never clean. It proves that the world is moving, Right? I think we need a kind of a different relationship with repetition. We treat repetition like failure because we think spiritual growth should be, I guess, A straight line, Right? You learn the lesson once and then you move on. But I found that life keeps basically bringing back the same lesson, But in different clothes. You know, There's patience with your children, Then there's patience with your parents. And then the tough one, There's patience with your actual self, Right? It all looks like a new situation, But really underneath is the same step. Sweep it again. Sweep it again. And humility itself is exactly like that. You know, You think you've become humble, Then somebody ignores your work, And then suddenly you're giving a six-hour speech you heard about why you deserve some kind of recognition. Sweep it again. Sweep it again. Attachment is like that. You believe you've released something and then it becomes. . . Then it becomes threatened and you discover that your hand was still wrapped around it. So sweep it again. And grief is almost the exact same way. You can have a good month. You could feel stable. You'll laugh. You begin living normally again. And then a song or something comes on in your car or the grocery store. And the person is gone all over again. And you start to go through those memories. The stat, Right? Not because the grief is dirty or something, Because the heart needs care again. I think parenting might be probably the best example. You know, You clean the living room and then 10 minutes later, There's toys everywhere. You explain a rule, Right? The rule vanishes from the child's mind before the sentence has even entered the air. And then you teach kindness and then one brother hits the other with some plastic dinosaur. You know, You have a beautiful moment when everybody seems connected and grateful. And then someone gets the wrong color cup and the entire family collapses and there's an all-out war. And then you begin again, Right? You don't say, Well, I taught kindness on Tuesday, So I guess I'm done teaching. You know, You keep showing them, You keep doing it, Mostly through the way that you react when the dust comes back per se. I mean, That itself is the real teaching. Not how peaceful you are when everything is clean. It's how you respond when the wind ruins your work. Yeah. So do you become bitter? Do you blame everyone? Do you decide that nothing matters then? Do you say, Why should I even bother? Yeah, I've said that. And I would imagine everyone has at some point. I mean, Why keep trying when the world keeps, You know, Undoing things all the time? Why care about people who keep making the same mistakes over and over, And why clean something that is just going to get dirty again? Right? I mean, To me those are stupid questions. The monk, He didn't answer them intellectually at all. He answered them by sweeping. He wasn't responsible for defeating the wind. He was responsible for how he met the step in front of him. That's a very, Very different way to live. You know, You stop demanding that your actions control the entire future. So, You do what is yours to do now. Right? Feed the child. Make the call. Tell the truth. Sit with the person. Whatever it is, Clean the room, Apologize, Meditate, And then start again. You're not promised permanence ever. You're only given the participation. I think that's why Karma Yoga I think that's really what Karma Yoga means at its deepest level. Action without psychological ownership of the entire result. You still care about what happens, But you're not indifferent. Right? You're not indifferent. The monk, He wanted the steps clean or he wouldn't have swept them, Right? But he didn't need the steps to remain clean forever in order to act, To have meaning. And I think that's the big part that we miss. We think that non-attachment means not caring, And it doesn't guys, It really doesn't. It means caring without demanding that reality preserve your work as proof that it matters. A meal matters even though hunger returns. Comfort matters even though grief returns. Kindness matters even if the person forgets your name. The fact that something ends doesn't erase what it was while it was actually happening. I remember asking myself, What the monk would do if the wind blew everything back before he had even finished. And I think he'd probably keep sweeping, You know, Not like some crazy nutbag doing dramatic sweeping, Not some like heroic spiritual expression. Just move in the broom. That's it. You know? This is where I think a lot of wisdom really does live. In the willingness to kind of repeat small good action without becoming I guess insulted by impermanence, Right? And I still struggle with that and I think all of us do. I want things fixed. I want the conversation to settle something permanently. I want spiritual practice to prevent me from falling into that same old BS. And then the wind comes through, And then the mind gets messy, And the house gets messy, And the world gets messy, And I hear that sentence again. The wind has its work. And I have mine. Right? The wind is going to blow. People are going to change. Bodies are going to age. Children are going to grow and get angry and dust will settle on every single thing that we love. And we don't get to control that part. Our work is deciding whether we still pick up the broom. To win against the wind. Just care for the step itself. Well, It is ours, For now. Thanks for listening. Namaste.