You love your meditation time, or your reading time, or whatever time is special to you. You feel at peace. Now think of some activity you must do daily. You consider it a chore, both literally and figuratively. You likely have many. Bring to your awareness what you feel as you do this chore. Likely, what you feel is frustration. Certainly, it is less pleasant than sitting in meditation or being with a loved one.
What if you were to examine the thoughts behind your frustration? They would be far from focused on the task at hand. They would be something like, “I should be doing that other thing.” “I have to do this or that.” “I don’t have time for this,” or any number of thoughts that have nothing to do with the task at hand. And therein lies the cause of your frustration. Your thoughts have created it, not the task at hand. The task simply is.
And so, get rid of your thoughts whilst performing so-called chores. We mean this literally. Focus so fully on the task at hand that all thoughts of “should, have to, and don’t want to” disappear. In that focus, what remains? Peace, my friend, for it is not the chore that brings you frustration, but the mind that is everywhere but present.
As the mind wanders, pay attention to how mundane, frantic, or demanding are your thoughts, and all of them on anything but the task at hand. “But focusing on the dishes, the soap, the feeling of the water … How boring!” you might say, and we say, how peace-ful, how joy-ful to focus the mind! Is this not exactly why you enjoy your meditation? When you empty the mind, if only for a moment, and train it to focus, the gaps between the thoughts lengthen, and in the gaps you find your Self—pure Being … Love … Peace. And soon you find, without the mind, that life is no longer a chore.
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