Clean Like a Monk:
Daily Mindfulness Starts with Cleaning Your Floor
Last summer my aunt sent me a little book that I came to love and I learned a lot about loving my home and how cleaning your home can be a meditation and mindfulness practice. The book is called “A Monk’s Guide to a Clean House and Mind.” by Shoukei Matsumoto.
I found the teachings in this book to be so gentle, so kind. Through this book we can all learn that caring for our home is also caring for ourselves and others. It is a practice of joy, a practice of love. This is what I love about this book and what I learned from it. Recently, I decided to pick up the book again as it was calling to me (just this morning in fact.)
After reading the book last year, for quite some time I started a daily ritual of waking up early, sweeping our main floor and then mopping the floor by hand with a cloth. I did this in the beautiful silence of the early morning. I didn’t listen to a podcast of music, I just focused on the rhythm of the cleaning. I heart the birds outside, I observed my thoughts and let them go. I wiped away the dirt of the floor and the dirt of any negative thinking that I had lingering in my mind. I loved the feeling of seeing a shining, clean floor each morning to start the day with. I was sweeping away any bad energy and starting each day fresh. This process took only 30 minutes each morning and I found that I was getting great exercise from doing this activity as well. It was like meditation and exercise all in one!
For some reason, after a few weeks I left this practice and went back to traditional meditation and exercise. That routine works fairly well for me, however something today made me want to pick up this book again and start the practice again. I think that there is something about being in lockdown, at home most of the time that makes me want to care for and connect to my home more. I feel that starting this morning sweeping practice will give me the meditation, exercise, mindfulness and fresh start that I am needing each morning. It’s time to start again!
Cleaning is carried out not because there is dirt but because it’s an ascetic practice to cultivate the mind.-Shoukei Matsumoto
I actually look forward to changing up my routine tomorrow morning and doing my daily sweeping and hand mopping of the floor. I believe it will provide the quiet and the solace that my mind needs right now. I think it is very important to notice how you are feeling in your home, in your routine, especially right now in these uncertain times. We need to pay attention to our energy and how our bodies feel. I feel like I need a bit of a change, and this change will bring some peace of mind along with a clean floor.
The point of housework is to clean up dirt and grime, isn’t it? So you might be wondering what the point is of cleaning something that is already spotless. But for monks the physical act of polishing the floor is analogous to cleaning the earthly dirt from your soul. This grime accumulates in your body and poisons your mind. Wipe your floor and see. Each blemish you find is a sign of unrest in your mind. Once you learn how to see how your inner turmoil manifests itself through your surroundings, you can reverse engineer this, mastering yourself by mastering the space in which you live.
I love how beautifully Shoukei Matsumoto expresses how intertwined we are with our surroundings. You can master yourself by mastering your home and surroundings. This is something I have always felt, as I have a routine of tidying up our home before I settle in to work for the day. However, I now feel as we are at home almost all of the time, it is important that our surrounds feel good, that they feel clean and comfortable. This effects our energy and how we live together in this home. It has come time for me to come back to this practice.
In the book, he explains how to polish the floor in a detailed manner. No soap or cleaners are used, just a bucket of clean water and a cloth. It is a very mindful practice. It is simple, but profound. Could this practice bring us back to peace each morning? I think it can.
As you do this (polish the floor) avoid any unnecessary thoughts, instead allowing your body to focus only on the task at hand. When doing this alone, you should be looking inward. When doing this with others, allow yourself to notice those around you, being conscious of your role in the team effort.
I love this practice of letting go of our thought, or just noticing them quickly, not judging them, and letting them go while we are doing our morning sweeping and mopping of the floor. In this way we can sweep away any thoughts that aren’t serving us from the past and we can start fresh and new, just like our floors. We can polish our good ideas just as we polish our floors. We can sweep out the negative and let in the positive on a daily basis. What a beautiful practice this is! This is why I am excited to try this again. It is time to start anew.
Adherence to the past and misgivings about the future will fill your head, wresting your mind from the present. This is why we monks pour ourselves heart and soul into the polishing of the floors. Cleaning is training for staying in the now. Therein lies the reason for being particular about cleanliness.
I love the idea of cleaning as training for staying in the now. If I make it a point to clean our home without listening to a podcast or music, I am staying in the now. I am being present with myself and with my home. Cleaning the floors each morning by hand may seem like a very old fashioned task, but it can bring us back into ourselves and help us appreciate the present moment, help us appreciate that we do have a floor to clean and a house to live in. That is a very powerful thought.
How are you feeling in your home right now? What are you struggling with in your home? I find that if we can find a daily practice no matter how small to care for our home we will be caring for ourselves too.
Wishing you love and light today!
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Trista