Chop wood, Carry water
Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
Have you heard of this saying?
It’s a Zen Buddhist saying and it is one I personally love.
Being something of a “seeker” myself, of knowledge, of understanding, of all the many “why’s” of this world, I sometimes get lost in the world of my mind.
The mind has a tendency towards an insatiable appetite for “needing to know”. One can be struck with a kind of feverish curiosity which creates suffering.
Have you ever experienced a persistent stream of thoughts or even just one thought that ricochet’s around inside your head like a ball in a pinball machine. Exhausting!
Curiosity is a wonderful quality and yet temperance is helpful here, as with all things, because left unchecked, the mind can run wild. In the yogic tradition it’s called “Monkey Mind”.
Picture a monkey swinging from tree to tree, in a frenzied haphazard way.
The image and the understanding from this is, that overthinking creates a frenetic energy which in-turn can create a feeling of being unsafe.
This can promote reactivity and so on. It’s like a chain of events which may unfold simply from one thought gaining traction inside our head, getting out of control, attracting a multitude more thoughts, and so on and so forth.
Recognise this?
So how does all this relate to “Before enlightenment chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water”
Let me give you an example.
This morning my 9 year old daughter awoke late. 7:50 am. Late for her, and she was very unhappy with me because I had not woken her up. She was angry and upset and as a result, she yelled at me and stormed about for a bit.
What I realised as she was yelling at me was that underneath her anger was potentially something else which I sensed but was not sure of. As it turned out, my sense was accurate. And this “sensing” is key.
Side note:
Do you “sense” things?
I believe we can grow this ability to sense and perceive more deeply, what is happening both within and around us. Practices of awareness through many ways, on which I have written other blogs on. ☺️
Back to our example…
My daughter has been experiencing some stress with her friends through conflict and misunderstanding.
Her anxiety from her thoughts about facing this at school had escalated.
In that moment her ability to emotionally regulate was overridden by fear of what might happen at school. Anger was her defence system kicking in to protect her.
Now most kids will find it difficult to emotionally regulate and actually many adults do also. It’s very challenging to hold awareness of thoughts in a state of high anxiety, for anyone.
This is a whole other topic so I am not going to proceed further with this but to say that here’s what happened next.
I knew in that moment that my daughter needed a feeling of safety and security. A feeling of being loved and protected. So, I offered her a hug, acknowledgment and reassurance. I then went straight on to “chopping wood and carrying water”
I got her breakfast, encouraged her to get dressed, started making her lunch, reminded her of feeding the fish and her guinea pigs.
Once the ball was rolling and the adrenalin was settling in her system and her emotional atmosphere was becoming calm, she remembered swimming was after school. So she packed her bag ready for that.
We both completed our morning jobs and before she left I hugged her and reminded her that she could not control the actions of others, but she could be in charge of her own behaviour.
Many times in the past, as a parent I have felt / acted in far less “enlightened” ways. Not to say that how I acted today was “enlightened” but maybe it was!
Enlightenment may be touted as some goal of achievement that once achieved, all is perfection.
Who really knows??
What I perceive here and now is that perhaps moments of enlightenment come to us in very real situations so that we can offer empathy over judgment, compassion over violence with a feeling of love, peace and safety.
We can cultivate awareness through practices that strengthen our recognition of the minds unstable tendencies.
This empowers us to emotionally regulate in times of stress and fear, it give us tools to practice self- compassion and compassion for others in tricky moments, in all our moments!
In my opinion, these moments of ‘enlightenment’ are not the goal, they are a path.
Along that path we simply continue to “chop wood and carry water”
These are the necessary and often ‘ordinary’ activities of daily living which we attend to, which matter.
They set the rhythm for our days and can in fact, be an anchor or a navigational tool in times of chaos.
So what ever “enlightenment” means to you, and however you “chop wood and carry water” I invite you to pause and reflect on your own moments of awareness.
On how this helps you to grow compassion for yourself and others. On how these many many ordinary moments in our life string together to create an extraordinary experience which we each are living, in our own unique and precious way
Author - Rebecca Foster, Nurture Soul
