Marie Kondo is very in right now so I figure this is a relevant topic to discuss.
In Zen monasteries, every single organizational detail is meticulously accounted for. Nothing is undone, nothing is overdone. Essential tasks are tended to with absolute care. Different monks are given different responsibilities. But everything is cleaned and organized with consistency and care. Floors are swept, items are placed in their appropriate location, dishes are scrubbed, meals are cooked, and not a grain of rice is wasted. Clutter is non-existent. If an object does not bring value, it is not acquired.
Why?
The common answer is “a cluttered desk is a cluttered mind”, but there’s more. As laypeople, we think of meditation as its own activity, something we do when we aren’t doing something else. But if you actually do meditate, you find ample opportunities to apply mindfulness to other activities in your life. In this sense, everything is meditation. Every conversation, chore, work task and walk in the park is meditation. It’s all-encompassing. That’s precisely what makes the practice so powerful.
I had a brief period this past year when I stopped meditating. Sometimes I take breaks to see what my day-to-day life is like without it. The effects weren’t drastic, but if I had stopped for good I imagine they would have compounded over time and caused me some trouble. I found my bad habits got a bit worse, my anger was less under control, and I was more anxious than usual. I was less productive and creative, and my self-doubt seemed to increase an irrational amount. And I had become noticeably messier.
When I started up again, I noticed I suddenly began to take much better care of my day-to-day spaces. I found myself keeping up with household chores much more consistently. I reorganized my office. I cleaned out my car. And I enjoyed these activities not just because the end result is pleasant, but because it feels good to focus the mind intently on a given task, to treat it as a meditation.
The mental muscle you train while meditating doesn’t stop when you end your session. You’ll find it playfully creeping into other facets of life. And you start to see the immersive nature of Zen, how every activity we choose is deeply interconnected to other activities, as well as your thoughts and feelings about life.
Try making a list of activities you can apply this concept to. What do you do every day that you can root yourself in deeply and treat as a form of meditation? For me, the list looks like this:
—Walking the dog
—Cooking meals
—Answering emails
—Packing orders for my business
—Cleaning my office
—Weightlifting
—Writing
—Reading
These are activities I do every day, and when I approach them with mindfulness I enjoy them much more (and do them more effectively). Try this yourself for a week and see what happens. I find it strengthens both my day-to-day enjoyment and my actual meditation practice.