Zen and the Art of Cleaning Up

You seem to be clean people….not the type of people who leave messes behind….that is a cardinal rule of Zen…Leave no Mess…

Now, there are activities you do everyday that you barely give a second-thought…like showering before you go to work…in two decades you will shower more than 7000 times {pre-Pandemic estimate}.

Zen tells us to look carefully at those details….how we do them, why we do them?? Because those are our STEPS TOWARD ETERNITY…those little things we do ARE ALL WE ARE…those little things we do ARE WHAT WE ARE.

Zen is about Compassion so What about the Art of CLEANING UP AFTER OTHERS?

For me, this is where I live…during our 50 years of marriage, my wife and I have had as many as four dogs at a time…if I average just 3 dogs times 350 days a year times let’s say only 30 years {pre-50th year Anniversary stats}….i get 136,500….136,500 WHAT??  136,500 poop bags…if nature only called each dog once a day

This is something I know how to do….and I do it to keep the cosmos in order…and to avoid bad karma…Zen recommends avoiding incurring consequences of bad karma…if someone steps in it…IT COULD ALTER THE DIRECTION OF THE UNIVERSE…CERTAINLY THE DIRECTION OF THE DAY FOR THAT PERSON…maybe even ruin their day….the last thing you want to do is ruin someone’s day…so I see you getting involved in cleaning up after others too …you know how to do your job and you’re not average bears you probably know how to do other people’s work…some of you not only clean up after a spouse and children…you clean up after your colleagues…REMEMBER--the things you do for others are what you are….

First like me you have to be prepared…a Zen aphorism is READINESS IS ALL…you have to have enough bags to clean up the job….not just enough…you have to have them open….and like me you probably try to be gentle to the environment, another Zen invocation, so you RECYCLE AND REUSE…but be careful…..remember this….if you do something often enough, something is bound to go wrong…so if you are cleaning up after someone, be prepared to have to clean up after yourself cleaning up for someone else….I carry WIPES…..and at work they may help you wipe evidence off your fingers…Zen also recommends you do everything in moderation….if you are cleaning up messes in the backyard…don’t be overzealous…a two bagger may be comfortably done…but a hat-trick, a grand-slam…you may be asking for trouble….if you are cleaning up after others you really have to know just how much poop they’re leaving behind…you may need a larger bag…don’t multi-task unnecessarily…

I’ve been demonstrating theory so far…SOMETIMES CONDITIONS GRAVITATE AGAINST YOU….you don’t always have a smooth surface….bark….tall grass…sand….Zen tells us to BLOW THOSE PERFECT PICTURES…when you are cleaning up after someone, you are not always going to get it all…remember this too, DON’T FEEL THAT FATE IS PICKING ON YOU… at any given time in the world there is a good chance that thousands of other people are cleaning up after someone else too….Stuff happens….and it happens to all of us.

IN REAL LIFE SITUATIONS when you are walking your dog or in my case now two dogs, destiny and circumstance can triangulate you….for example…WE WERE WALKING THE NEIGHBORHOOD, Davie boy had to relieve himself on a neighbor’s lawn—WOULDN’T YOU KNOW IT.just as the neighbor was coming out the front door….she yelled at me accusing me of having left DavieBoy’s waste there MORE THAN ONCE before ON HER PRECIOUS LAWN….i became flustered and hadn’t opened a bag beforehand.Sweetness saw a squirrel and bolted for it…I DIDN’T QUITE GET ALL THE PRODUCT and in my haste I ended up tying the bag around DavieBoy’s leash….and stepping in the left over as I made my escape….guess I did get it all!!

Zen tells you that you may not attain enlightenment immediately…maybe not ever….for me it came after the one hundred and twenty-five thousand six hundred and fifty third time….but it came all at once…..similar thing happened…neighbor walks out the door just as Sweetness this time is responding to nature’s call….Davieboy sees a cat slinking near the bushes and lurches for it …now, this neighbor is a head taller than me and half-a-body wider, steam fuming from his beet red ears….i pick up the poop in one fell swoop and say in my best Muppet voice, and I have no idea why..…” I crap bigger than you!” the neighbor gives a belly laugh, “I saw that movie too…City Slicker…thanks for cleaning it up, wish everyone did….” That was only half-way to enlightenment… I SPOKE AGAIN WITHOUT THINKING, “Good girl.”…and look back at Sweetness, to see her looking at me—she cocks her head at an angle, smiles…you know dogs smile…I see she has been watching me put the bag in my jacket pocket. I CAN TELL WHAT SHE IS THINKING—"I am good.  He likes to save my poop—“ She turned on the switch, I lit up…enlightenment….

Think about it…Do you find yourself cleaning up after people at home and work…you do it without much thought or trouble….in a way you have taken it on as part of your job, as part of who you are….The people who you’re cleaning up after…they think you like to do it…REALLY, THEY THINK LEAVING THAT MESS FOR YOU IS PART OF THEIR JOB….

Many of you know what I talking about. Hey, sympatico… we are GOOD GRASSHOPPERS maintaining the order of the cosmos

I see some of you don’t get what I have been talking about….there’s a simple explanation for that…YOU’RE THE ONES THE REST OF US ARE CLEANING UP AFTER….but don’t worry, it’s just one of those things we all do that tell us who we are….