I have once again returned home after serving on a 10-day Vipassana
meditation course. I arrived at the course a few days after it had
begun. On this course I was washing dishes. Doing the dishes for 80
students whom you don’t know, without being paid, probably doesn’t sound
very appealing. The task also included waking up at 5:30 am to make
their breakfast, working closely with other servers whom I likewise
didn’t know, cleaning toilets, and a list of other chores that most
people wouldn’t ordinarily find very motivating.
So why did I do it? Jeppe Strandskov
Firstly,
being at the meditation center is a profound and deeply calming
experience. I heard plumbers who came to the center for work say that
they felt an extraordinary sense of peace being there. And they were on a
job, not meditating!
Secondly, it’s also a
joyful experience sharing moments with other servers. Although it isn’t
itself the goal of serving, we get to know each other really well during
a 10-day course. We share a genuine connection and have a lot of fun.
Not that everything goes smoothly all the time, but because we share the
practice of Vipassana we’re able to deal with the ups and downs
together.
As well as enjoying the fun, we do our best to accept
the challenges that arise. We learn through meditation to see things as
impermanent and not get entangled in them, either on an individual or a
group level. After serving some days on a course my sense of
self-importance wanes and my focus alters. My motivation and reasons for
serving change. I have the mental acumen to see beyond myself and to
concentrate on caring for the students sitting the course, so that they
are better able to develop through the practice of Vipassana.
Furthermore,
at the end of the course I feel a lot more tranquil, energetic and
alive than I did beforehand. I connect more deeply with people
afterwards, no matter whether it’s the merchant at the gas station or my
mother when I call her on my way home. Having done a Vipassana course
myself, I know that it can be a life-changing experience and the
beginning of a different path forward. It was for me.
As
I serve, I remember the Buddha and his great disciples, and the
qualities they developed. Their example has been a great help in my own
practice. The depths of the Dhamma that they developed was not something
that they achieved solely in the lifetime they became ariyas,
noble beings. For countless lives they strove for liberation by
meditating and performing good deeds, filling up their metaphorical jars
of paramis, the perfections. With diligence and renunciation,
they made extraordinary effort. Goenkaji said that they could have
succeeded by filling much smaller jars, but chose to undergo the
suffering of many additional lives so that they could develop the mental
strength to spread the Dhamma for the benefit of others. Understanding
what that means can help us implement the same goals and cultivate the
necessary resilience in our own lives.
The
Buddha and his disciples have already walked this path of purification.
Their footsteps are there in front of us, easy to follow. When I serve,
first and foremost I see their steps of loving-kindness, tolerance,
renunciation and generosity. Thinking of all the good deeds performed by
the Buddha’s disciples makes it easy for me to put my small feet into
their giant imprints.
One story from the
Buddha’s life really inspires me. He was asked to allow a woman to be
ordained as a nun. Following tradition, the Buddha at first refused, but
then changed his mind and, as it says in the Pāli canon, proclaimed
that the dispensation of the Dhamma would now last for only half as
long. He never said why. Perhaps he meant that in allowing the
ordination of both monks and nuns, the volition to join the saṅgha
would arise more often and spread faster among all recluses, and
therefore accelerate the spread of Dhamma. Whatever the reason, he
decided to give women as well as men the same opportunity to live a holy
life. When I serve, the Buddha’s compassion is a constant reminder for
me to shed old views and find ways to collaborate with other people,
even if our views differ.
The Buddha’s great disciple, Sāriputta, a leading figure in the sangha
and foremost in wisdom, also inspires me to serve others. While the
monks were out on their alms rounds, Sāriputta would go through their
sleeping quarters to ensure that their beds were neat and comfortable.
He was the chief disciple but still made beds! He did this so that new
monks would feel welcomed when they arrived and therefore inspired to
practice. Wow, what an example! Whatever role I might play when serving
at the center, I will never forget to do the simple things like seeing
that the rooms are well-kept and tidy, so that the center is always
welcoming!
Mahāmoggallāna, the foremost
disciple in psychic powers and Sāriputta’s counterpart, inspires me with
an unusual deed for a monk. Assassins had been hired by envious
ascetics to kill him. Moggallāna employed his supernatural abilities to
hide or to escape, doing so to spare them the terrible karmic
consequences of killing an arahant. He could have utilized his
mastery of psychic powers to defend himself; instead he tried to
persuade the assassins to give up their nefarious plan. However, they
persisted, and as the aging disciple’s supernatural powers diminished,
unfortunately they succeeded. With goodwill and humility Moggallāna
tried to avoid an ill-fated predicament, which serves as a great example
for me to remember to think of others and their actions. Even when I
might be the underdog in a given situation, if I can help others and
contribute to their welfare, it’s worth making the effort!
What
inspires me most about Ānanda, the Buddha’s closest assistant, is that
he served him every day, consistently, for 25 years. Ānanda had reached
the stage of sotāpanna, but never aspired to becoming an arahant,
to reaching full liberation. Working closely with the Enlightened One
for so many years, he could easily have asked the Buddha for a special
discourse or teaching to help him reach nibbāna. Instead, he
dedicated himself to serving: the Buddha, the monks and the nuns, and
laypeople who came to learn meditation. A pristine illustration of
selfless service!
The example of these
recluses, with their boundless qualities of loving-kindness, tolerance,
renunciation and generosity, is like a lighthouse for us when we are far
out at sea. Whether serving in the kitchen and encountering challenging
situations or people, whether serving on a committee and feeling that
we are doing most of the work, or whether renouncing our personal views
and compromising while serving as a trust member—whatever the challenge,
we might always ask ourselves what advice these great monks would have
given us to help turn a challenging circumstance into a positive one,
where we serve others and in so doing also serve ourselves. It is always
comforting to remember that someone else has been in a similar
situation and able to turn the tide. I try to feel that support and
inspiration when I take refuge in the saṅgha.
With all this in mind, steps on the path become a four-lane autobahn of loving-kindness, tolerance, renunciation and generosity.