The Buddhist Monk practice that (if you apply) can change your day for the better.
My Youtube feed seems to have Diogenes: I log in and get a pile of videos full of sh*t.
My Twitter feed seems bipolar: one day, it’s right-wing, and the next, it’s left-wing. It’s vegan and carnivore, environmentalist and denialist, Buddhist, and full of productivity tips.
My Facebook feed is a compulsive liar: it sends me a lot of content from supposed friends who aren’t my friends.
My email is full of messages from gurus abusing the PAS (problem, agitation, and solution) system — the world is full of abusers wanting to take your money legally with morally hyper-reproachable behavior.
Everywhere I go, influencers shout, “I’ve got what you want, just give me all your money, and I’ll show you the shortcut to stop being a loser,” while smiling at me using the new trendy filter makes them look 20 years younger.
My brain is fried from so many stimuli.
I don’t want any more dopamine; I’m so saturated with playing the algorithmic slot machine of TikTok that I dream of going back to the 80s and using technology in the service of humans and not sacrificing humans in favor of technology.
I’d love to have a coffee with someone, and after 5 minutes, they wouldn’t phubbing me and start looking at their Instagram notifications.
How I wish that in the attention economy, my family and friends would save a little bit of their attention every day for me.
But it seems more and more like a utopia.
That’s why, if the same thing happens to you as to me, I want to propose a mindfulness exercise to detoxify yourself from so much free dopamine and regain the connection with reality.
It is a Japanese method that works very well for me, and I hope it works for you.
What is Soji
“Life is a daily practice, if you are careless, your mind and spirit will be dirty. But if you are neat, your mind and spirit will be clean.” — Shoukei Matsumoto.
Soji is a Japanese practice performed by Buddhist monks every morning.
It combines mindfulness with cleansing: being aware that you are cleansing, not as a duty, but as a purification.
Shoukei Matsumoto, a monk who wrote several books on the subject, organizes in his temple what he calls “Temple mornings,” which consists of inviting groups of people from outside the temple to help them with the cleaning tasks and to benefit from the practice of Soji.
How Soji works
“Mindfulness is the ability to be deliberately aware of one’s own experience and to observe it without evaluating it in a state of detachment.” — Shoukei Matsumoto.
The temple mornings that Shoukei prepares for people go this way,
- People recited sutras for about 20 minutes.
- The practitioners sweep leaves off the ground, dusting and removing wilted flowers from the graves for about half an hour.
- In the end, the people Sit in a circle and drink tea while the attendees (groups of about 20 people) share what they did in the previous days or their daily concerns.
As you can see, it doesn’t take more than an hour, and they practice mindfulness, interact with each other, and even meditate on mortality as they pick up the wilted flowers from the graves (or at least I would).
How you can apply it to your life
“Technological innovations and social changes have made our lives more and more comfortable at the expense of our freedom and our physical and mental well-being.”- Shoukei Matsumoto.
As I am not lucky enough to live in Japan, nor near a Zen monastery, what I do every morning does a variation of Shoukei’s method.
I share it with you so that you can apply it to your daily life,
- I meditate/pray for 20 minutes.
- I practice Samu Zen, which is doing mindfulness while cleaning tasks to keep my work area tidy and clean for 30 minutes.
- I have tea while talking with a friend or family member for about 15 minutes.
This way, I tidy my work area, keep in touch with family and friends, and start my day on the right foot.
I could hire a cleaning service, but in the end, if everything is outsourced, what is the point of life?
Besides, legend has it that Suddikipanthaka, one of Buddha’s first disciples, became enlightened while sweeping.
The same thing could happen to you or me. Who knows?
And if not, at least we will have detoxified a bit from all that technology that overwhelms us and floods us daily.
A virtual hug
AG
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