Bring Walking Awareness to Vacuuming

A friend from long ago, Dr.David Shlim, wrote a memoir about his remarkable life. It’s titled A Gentle Rain of Compassion. For 16 years he served as the Medical Director for a Travel Medical Center in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has had so many other accomplishments and adventures you might want to read the book yourself.

One observation he made about how the Nepalese approach the “chores” of everyday life has changed my thinking.

David must have clarified at least three times that the people of Kathmandu had no concept of chores. They saw sweeping, cleaning, washing, gathering, cooking, etc. simply as the activities of life. They are no big deal, it’s just what you do.

It hadn’t occurred to me that in our culture we put a stigma on these activities by defining them as “chores.”

The Balance process of becoming more aware leads us to watch our positioning throughout the day. And because our bodies are so inextricably linked with our thoughts and emotions, we begin to see our attitudes as well.

Before I began paying attention to my thoughts and sensations, I often resented the daily activities of life: getting dinner on the table, doing the wash, or cleaning the hamster cage. I had the notion that I was meant for bigger things. I would rush through the “chores,” most of the time thinking about my real life, the important things like mothering, work or contributing to community events.

With the myriad of movements and experiences of life, I have fewer and fewer preferences. It is as interesting to me to observe myself as a teacher as it is to observe myself as a chief cook and bottle washer. I am no less interested in my inner workings when figuring out if a sock is navy blue or black than when I am attending an opera gala or a holiday event, or teaching at Stanford.

Through years of cultivating awareness, it has dawned on me that no one moment or activity is more important than any other. What imbues each moment with importance is being awake to it. Every time you and I perceive our buttocks on the chair we are awake to the moment. Every time we feel the sensations of our emotions – tightness in the throat, something gut-wrenching, laughter spilling out – we are present. There is no separation between what’s going on and our attention.

All of this to say, in this week’s Friday noon class, we will dissect vacuuming as walking. Instead of approaching vacuuming as a chore, we’ll approach it as an opportunity for awareness.

You can either attend in your house dress, like the lady below, or in your garden party dress, like the lady above. Feel free to attend with your vacuum. I’ll bring mine but am worried about its roar. . . .