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The Buddhist way to wash dishes without resentment
Coming to realise that all time is your time
Thich Nhat Hanh tells a story about one of the lay helpers at Plum Village. (Plum Village is the Buddhist centre in France that Nhat Hanh set up in 1982 after he left Vietnam for enforced exile in 1975.) The story concerns time — and I’m being vague as far as reference goes because I can’t find the actual story in the books on my shelf. I came to this post certain I knew in which book I could find the story and roughly where in the book it was. I failed to find the correct book. Even worse, I failed to find any notes about it, either. Sorry.)
For a moment I even doubted that I had read the story. But only for a moment.
Back to the story. In a conversation with this layman at Plum Village, Nhat Hanh senses the man is frustrated. He is. The man tells Nhat Hanh that, what with the many tasks he is assigned during the day and the time he spends with his young son, he finds no time for himself. He is resentful.
I knew where the resentful layman was coming from. For much of my adult life — and, dare I say it, even now when I fall back into less mature modes of thinking — this was how I looked at the demands of others. That he was resentful even of spending time with his young son had an echo in my feelings towards…
