Not just any dishes… other people’s.
Earlier this year (pre-Covid) I was fortunate enough to spend two weeks at Kopan, a Buddhist monastery in Nepal. I had grown tired of my career and was on a year long sabbatical to ‘find myself’. Yawn right?
Well 7 months after my trip, I recently reflected on my time at the monastery and the thing that sticks out to me most poignantly is the acts of Seva I was able to perform.
Let me back up for a second.
Monastic life consisted of early mornings, silence, meditation and lectures/ discussion groups on core Buddhist tenets and principles. It was regimented, structured and full participation in all sessions was strongly suggested. This was actually really nice, a lot of my fellow attendees remarked about how freeing it was to have zero decisions to make and to simply follow a set agenda.
There was one thing that was not mandated but in fact voluntary.
There was a piece of paper pinned to the notice board, it was a rota where you could sign up to wash dishes in the kitchen after either breakfast, lunch or dinner service.
Now each meal service served at least 200 people including course attendees, monks and nuns.
I thought nothing of it and decided I’d wait until the last day to wash dishes. I used to look forward to meal times so I could talk to all the interesting travelers from around the globe and swap stories.
On my penultimate day I went to do my dishwashing duty, totally on a voluntary basis. I just wanted to pay the monastery back a little for such an incredible experience.
I wasn’t prepared for the dishwashing to be the most deeply spiritual and meditative experience of my whole visit there.
I wasn’t prepared for the experience to be so rewarding in fact, that it would cause me to miss my flight to Thailand and book one instead to India… to wash more dishes.
Yep.
When washing dishes for the hundreds of diners at lunch service, I fell into a sort of trance state. The repetition and physicality of the washing of plates, knives and spoons was hypnotic in its simplicity. One couldn’t help but feel a sense of calm wash over. I was able to simply drift off into peaceful thought as my mind was occupied on this mundane task.
Now we’ve all experienced this sort of flow state before but this was different. It was humbling. I felt really good about washing these particular dishes for the following reasons:
1. I didn’t know which dish belonged to whom.
This embodied the principle of equality espoused by my Buddhist teachers — indeed Mahayana Buddhism teaches we all have ‘Buddha Nature’ and so should treat one another as equals. I wasn’t able to feel happy washing one of my new friend’s dishes or begrudge washing the dish of someone who had maybe annoyed me a little. They were all uniformly anonymous. Much like the shaved headed monks I’d grown used to seeing all over the place.
2. There was no expectation of thanks or reciprocity.
We live in extremely ego driven times, where acts of charity are recorded for upload on social media. Where people insist of having their names written on the hospital wings and libraries they ‘donate’. It felt really good to just do something anonymously for a greater purpose, with absolutely no request of something in return, not even a thank you. It is really important to do things with no expectation of thanks or reciprocity.
3. It gave me a sense of purpose.
How many of us actually live with a sense of purpose? If you do, congratulations but I just spent the last 10 years making software CEOs and Venture Capitalists wealthier while occasionally donating some money to random charities out of guilt. I wasn’t curing cancer in my former profession and nor was I in washing dishes. However, washing dishes was my silent acknowledgement of a humble position as a tiny cog in a machine that was promoting peace and harmony in the world. In my small act, I felt like I was helping the mission. I guess this is how soldiers in battle used to feel when armies fought for actual reasons instead of oil and profits.
As I mentioned earlier, the experience of washing dishes struck such a chord with me that I decided to go onto The Golden Temple in Amritsar AKA the ‘Harmandir Sahib’.
This Sikh temple in the northern region of India known as Punjab is credited with having the largest free kitchen in the world. Their ‘langar’ or kitchen, feeds over 50,000 people PER DAY for the princely sum of ZERO DOLLARS.
Sorry just to restate:
A TEMPLE IN INDIA SERVES MEALS TO OVER 50,000 EVERY SINGLE DAY FOR FREE
And this is regardless of religion, race, gender, age, employment status or anything. I mean literally anyone in the world can and does rock up for free food. The most delicious meal of chapathi, daal, vegetables, rice and a dessert.
I volunteered to wash dishes in the back of the kitchen and let me tell you this is a serious operation. They have about 10 12ft long troughs filled with water and soap and assembly lines of people waiting to wash dishes. Eager, willing, humble volunteers who want to ‘do seva’.
Seva — a Sanskrit word that describes the act of selfless service.
Seva can come in many forms at the Golden temple. They have people cooking as volunteers, cleaning, washing dishes and much more. While you do these tasks you can listen to beautiful Sikh hymns that still play in my mind to this day.
It’s a truly meditative and deeply satisfying experience.
I flew into Amritsar for 2.5 days and racked up a sum total of about 9 hours of dishwashing. Indeed, even when I had a few hours to kill before my flight to Delhi, instead of sightseeing I just went to wash dishes. It had this amazing magnetism about it, the feeling I got from my selfless service.
Now back in my little consumer bubble in the US I am seeking out new outlets to perform seva.
It is of vital importance that one does not conflate charity with Seva. This is not simply writing a check. It is a sacred act that should be performed anonymously, with no expectation of praise or reciprocity/ remuneration. When performing the act I suggest silence and meditation.
It may seem foreign to many. That may be a damning indictment on society today. Or maybe everyone is doing it and I had just been a selfish asshole for too long. Either way… Seva is 100% one of the most healing and spiritual things you can do for yourself and society right now.
So get out there and do Seva.
And wear a mask.
