I hated doing the dishes. I mean I really HATED it all my life. My father used to force me to do them when I was a kid, during his crazy days. I remember feeling shaky in the legs from the long time standing, the weight of dishes on my arms which were still pretty skinny and small. The nausea of rage would well up my eyes with fat bitter tears of dreaming I could escape this cruel tyrant, and the rage used to overwhelm the back of my throat, I hate you.
But the knowledge that he would beat the living daylights outta me kept me reigned in, temporarily. I was only 6, and he always overpowered me physically in confrontation. And beat me. So learned to store my hatred deeeeeep inside my gut, silent and evil, it crept up my spine and came to reside in in the deepest corners of my heart.
I didn’t know all that, though. I was just 6. All I knew is I just hated doing the dishes.
My husband often asks me to do the dishes, because he doesn’t know why I hate to do the dishes. And he didn’t know that he pushed the “I hate you father” button/knot and he is a father too now, so there's a weird mix of habitual responses that aren't appropriate to the situation now.
I just realized this right now as I was writing this. …pause… I unfairly put him in a place where I made him the object of my anger. Yet, I blamed him for being there, not realizing it was ME putting him there. Realization in real-time… whoa… That’s deep.
Let me tell you how an online forum started this process of realization for me, and how if anyone doubts the power of the internet as a connecting force between minds they’re plain wrong. In 2008 I was in crisis, emotionally, I just had come through a really stressful couple of years starting a new family in a dying economy. The impact it had on us to lose half our earning power in the household and therefore have a doubled-cost of living was pretty gruesome to our emotions, sense of intimacy towards each other, and we were really tried through the thick part they talk about in the “thick and thin” side of marriage.
The struggle was too much, I was in a country foreign to me for a period and didn’t know where to turn. So google here I came, and typed in *sigh* Buddhism.
Thich Nhat Hanh was the first author that popped up in the search for amazon.com. I looked at the book’s review, everyone seemed to think it was all that and a bag of chips and voila, I found E-Sangha. What is this e-sangha thing?
Blast open the doors of dharma, I stumbled upon a mine of precious dha*ma gems, which catapulted me into an accelerated Buddhist path I was more than ready for. Soon after I ended up/started up taking refuge and after e-sangha was no longer an active site, became a major influence in founding our own sangha on the internet "FreeSangha" a free loosely organized convergence of diverse Buddhist thinking, accepting that all foundations of the dharma are merely different expressions of the same universal truths of emptiness and the causes and cessation of suffering starting in ignorance and ceasing in Buddhahood.
What happened to unlock such an open space?
I learned to love to do the dishes. Someone on E-Sangha had a little quote in their signature, he was a theravada monk, it said, “Sweep, clean” this the buddha taught. I had a little primer with the returned search results of True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh, and felt invigorated to investigate this Buddhism-thing a little more. E-sangha gave me a homecoming to myself. I found dha*ma brothers and sisters in all traditions and schools in only 6 months of exposure to Buddhism. And this wonderful Theravadan monk had this little quote, and it had another line, probably the important one, but I knew that one already, this one was new, “Sweep,Clean” wha…?
I thought about it, and remembered my anger towards the evil image of my father in my mind, and submitted to it. I consciously, one day in the middle of a furious inner tirade at being once again asked to do the dishes, I just consciously STOPPPPPPED. I mentally whipped around at myself and just grabbed my tirading little petty self and just bowed to the evil image of my father (in my mind). Suddenly I breathed uneasily, as if being really in both spaces at the same time and thought, I was wrong. He was a hurt boy living the life of a sad man. He’s not evil. I was angry, I was a child. I didn’t understand how he did not have the capacity for any clarity beyond the horrors of his own inner wounds.
He wasn’t prepared to face the life he had, and he did the best he could and failed at many things. I swallowed this at once and knew it was the truth. I didn’t want to look at this nasty thing I’d made of my father, because I didn’t want to know it was my fault because I was afraid I’d be a terrible person. That’s a tremendously powerful fear. One that grips you from the guts to the heart.
I remembered that quote of all sudden, “Sweep, clean. Contemplate emptiness, monks. Keep your mind only on dharma” and I was there bowing to my father, because he was still my father and still did the best he could and I had not respected that. I was bowing and suddenly it came to me, the humility and the beauty of surrendering to the simple truth. There was no shame in my ignorance, only childishness. Nothing to blame, just grow up little girl. You’re not 3 you’re not four, grow up little girl.
It happened. In a second I grew and suddenly loved these dishes for the humility and worth they brought ME. I was in tears, and since then, whenever I feel a thing I have to do I don’t like, I think “Sweep,Clean” and give it time for the rush of the painful knot that formed to emerge, and its properties come back to me, and then I accept it, now I’m strong. I am confident. One day, though it is not today, I will be a Buddha, because I have promised to help ALL sentient beings in my heart, even if not in a formal vow. Every journey even the longest ones start with a step. And nothing ever begun is ever lost.
I take refuge every day in the human heart, all of you that can carry buddhanature and therefore implicitly the dharma. I understand why the dishes were my key to learn to transform a hate to a love.
And, guess what, now I must go do the dishes that have been sitting there all day. Even while doing dishes, I still see the words that unlocked this realization from its inception: Sweep, Clean. Practice dharma. I volunteered last night. My husband adores this. I adore him. I'm glad I can make him happy with so little. It works out perfect, because I made a bold move and took a chance with the dharma to make a real change in my perception.
_/|\_
Ogyen.
Sweep,Clean.
Contemplate Emptiness.
But the knowledge that he would beat the living daylights outta me kept me reigned in, temporarily. I was only 6, and he always overpowered me physically in confrontation. And beat me. So learned to store my hatred deeeeeep inside my gut, silent and evil, it crept up my spine and came to reside in in the deepest corners of my heart.
I didn’t know all that, though. I was just 6. All I knew is I just hated doing the dishes.
My husband often asks me to do the dishes, because he doesn’t know why I hate to do the dishes. And he didn’t know that he pushed the “I hate you father” button/knot and he is a father too now, so there's a weird mix of habitual responses that aren't appropriate to the situation now.
I just realized this right now as I was writing this. …pause… I unfairly put him in a place where I made him the object of my anger. Yet, I blamed him for being there, not realizing it was ME putting him there. Realization in real-time… whoa… That’s deep.
Let me tell you how an online forum started this process of realization for me, and how if anyone doubts the power of the internet as a connecting force between minds they’re plain wrong. In 2008 I was in crisis, emotionally, I just had come through a really stressful couple of years starting a new family in a dying economy. The impact it had on us to lose half our earning power in the household and therefore have a doubled-cost of living was pretty gruesome to our emotions, sense of intimacy towards each other, and we were really tried through the thick part they talk about in the “thick and thin” side of marriage.
The struggle was too much, I was in a country foreign to me for a period and didn’t know where to turn. So google here I came, and typed in *sigh* Buddhism.
Thich Nhat Hanh was the first author that popped up in the search for amazon.com. I looked at the book’s review, everyone seemed to think it was all that and a bag of chips and voila, I found E-Sangha. What is this e-sangha thing?
Blast open the doors of dharma, I stumbled upon a mine of precious dha*ma gems, which catapulted me into an accelerated Buddhist path I was more than ready for. Soon after I ended up/started up taking refuge and after e-sangha was no longer an active site, became a major influence in founding our own sangha on the internet "FreeSangha" a free loosely organized convergence of diverse Buddhist thinking, accepting that all foundations of the dharma are merely different expressions of the same universal truths of emptiness and the causes and cessation of suffering starting in ignorance and ceasing in Buddhahood.
What happened to unlock such an open space?
I learned to love to do the dishes. Someone on E-Sangha had a little quote in their signature, he was a theravada monk, it said, “Sweep, clean” this the buddha taught. I had a little primer with the returned search results of True Love by Thich Nhat Hanh, and felt invigorated to investigate this Buddhism-thing a little more. E-sangha gave me a homecoming to myself. I found dha*ma brothers and sisters in all traditions and schools in only 6 months of exposure to Buddhism. And this wonderful Theravadan monk had this little quote, and it had another line, probably the important one, but I knew that one already, this one was new, “Sweep,Clean” wha…?
I thought about it, and remembered my anger towards the evil image of my father in my mind, and submitted to it. I consciously, one day in the middle of a furious inner tirade at being once again asked to do the dishes, I just consciously STOPPPPPPED. I mentally whipped around at myself and just grabbed my tirading little petty self and just bowed to the evil image of my father (in my mind). Suddenly I breathed uneasily, as if being really in both spaces at the same time and thought, I was wrong. He was a hurt boy living the life of a sad man. He’s not evil. I was angry, I was a child. I didn’t understand how he did not have the capacity for any clarity beyond the horrors of his own inner wounds.
He wasn’t prepared to face the life he had, and he did the best he could and failed at many things. I swallowed this at once and knew it was the truth. I didn’t want to look at this nasty thing I’d made of my father, because I didn’t want to know it was my fault because I was afraid I’d be a terrible person. That’s a tremendously powerful fear. One that grips you from the guts to the heart.
I remembered that quote of all sudden, “Sweep, clean. Contemplate emptiness, monks. Keep your mind only on dharma” and I was there bowing to my father, because he was still my father and still did the best he could and I had not respected that. I was bowing and suddenly it came to me, the humility and the beauty of surrendering to the simple truth. There was no shame in my ignorance, only childishness. Nothing to blame, just grow up little girl. You’re not 3 you’re not four, grow up little girl.
It happened. In a second I grew and suddenly loved these dishes for the humility and worth they brought ME. I was in tears, and since then, whenever I feel a thing I have to do I don’t like, I think “Sweep,Clean” and give it time for the rush of the painful knot that formed to emerge, and its properties come back to me, and then I accept it, now I’m strong. I am confident. One day, though it is not today, I will be a Buddha, because I have promised to help ALL sentient beings in my heart, even if not in a formal vow. Every journey even the longest ones start with a step. And nothing ever begun is ever lost.
I take refuge every day in the human heart, all of you that can carry buddhanature and therefore implicitly the dharma. I understand why the dishes were my key to learn to transform a hate to a love.
And, guess what, now I must go do the dishes that have been sitting there all day. Even while doing dishes, I still see the words that unlocked this realization from its inception: Sweep, Clean. Practice dharma. I volunteered last night. My husband adores this. I adore him. I'm glad I can make him happy with so little. It works out perfect, because I made a bold move and took a chance with the dharma to make a real change in my perception.
_/|\_
Ogyen.
Sweep,Clean.
Contemplate Emptiness.
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1 comment:
You are such a survivor /\
I'm glad the dharma offered you such relief <3
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