A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind

by Shoukei Matsumoto

A monk’s day begins with cleaning. We sweep the temple grounds and gardens and polish the main temple hall. We don’t do this because it’s dirty or messy. We do it to eliminate the suffering in our hearts.

We sweep dust to remove our worldly desires. We scrub dirt to free ourselves of attachments.

If you live carelessly, your mind will be soiled, but if you try to live conscientiously, it will slowly become pure again. If your heart is pure, the world looks brighter. If your world is bright, you can be kinder to others.

What is garbage exactly? Things that are dirty, worn out, unusable, no longer useful, no longer needed, and so on. And yet nothing starts out as garbage. Things become garbage when they are treated as garbage.

Things exist because all things relate with each other to support each other’s existence. Humans are the same. The people and things in your life are what makes you who you are. This is why it’s not for you to judge whether something is useful or to designate things you can’t use as garbage.

not being wasteful is not just about avoiding waste—it also embodies a spirit of gratitude toward objects. People who don’t respect objects don’t respect people. For them, anything no longer needed is just garbage. Children who grow up watching their parents act this way come to perceive not just things but friends in the same way as well.

Regardless of how much you clean things on the surface, if the air around you is stale, your mind will also feel this way.

All lives are interconnected and must be equally respected. You must not hurt or kill another living thing without reason.

humans have to take lives to harvest meat, fish, vegetables, and so on to survive, so we must be aware of this need and feel both remorseful and grateful.

Ascetic practice may evoke the image of someone performing a task alone and in silence, but in reality, cleaning a temple requires teamwork. It’s essential to know what others are doing:

You must understand the overall situation and think about the role you have to play in it, and then take certain initiatives, such as assisting others in their tasks. It is important to do things in an orderly and thorough manner while being mindful of what others around you are doing.

You don’t want to cause problems for others, so you really must ensure that you are doing things properly. This is an opportunity to learn that your existence is not just about yourself.

Zengosaidan is a Zen expression meaning that we must put all of our efforts into each day so we have no regrets, and that we must not grieve for the past or worry about the future. In the context of cleaning, zengosaidan means “Don’t put it off till tomorrow.”

This isn’t just about how you feel. Do what you need to do without delay. Eliminate the seeds that distract your mind with unnecessary thoughts about things you will be dealing with tomorrow or things that went wrong yesterday. The longer you neglect the impurities of the heart, the harder it is to remove them.

The most important thing about washing dishes is not to allow them to pile up.

If the body is washed sloppily, then impurities of the heart cannot be removed.

Sleeping longer than what your body actually requires is nothing short of lazy. Succumbing to sleep gluttony is giving in to your worldly desires.

you only keep things of good quality. They are the final products of many people’s diligent work. They are the kinds of things that you can continue to use again and again for many years. When you acquire such items, you begin to truly understand why they must be treasured. This is because the blood, sweat, and tears of the person or people who created them have become part of them. Conversely, if you are surrounded only by poor-quality objects that you don’t care about, it is impossible to understand what it is to truly value something.

By living with such a limited amount of clothing options, we are free from ever having to worry about what to wear.

Day in, day out, time marches forward and the seasons slowly shift. Buddha comes through nature and reaches out to us all. The nature you see around you is reflecting back at you what is in your heart.

Spring cleaning is a way to clear your mind of all the grime that has accumulated over the course of the year.