11 Jun Tomorrow you don’t have to do anything

‘Tomorrow you don’t have to do anything,’ says my wife. ‘Oh yes, right, tomorrow is Whit Monday,’ I think to myself. My calendar has a better sense of time than I do because it turns out to be completely empty, and I haven’t looked at it for two weeks.
The next day I unconsciously fall into a cleaning and rearranging mood.
Where should I keep my ‘attributes’ that I have received? Where should I place the cloth, called a 25-band kesa, and the master staff, called a kotsu? And what is a good spot for the ‘secret documents’ that I have received?

Why aggressive?  
I look at the altar in our house and decide to thoroughly clear it out first. That is not a harmless undertaking, because at the bottom of the cabinet that is now called an altar, there is sensitive material. There are boxes and cookie tins from my first wife stored there, which God knows why I could never get rid of. When I touch this content, something strange happens to me: apparently my inner self thinks I should throw these things into the trash bag with an aggressive gesture all at once. ‘What’s that now?’ I think to myself, ‘why aggressive?

I also know the answer. Because it hurts. And I do not want to feel this pain. Now that I realize this, it is different. I carefully let the contents of the boxes and cans pass through my fingers, and without dwelling on it for long, they still disappear into the gray plastic bag that growls contentedly. That same evening I take the bag to the trash can, where it makes a soft thud. Gizmo waits patiently.

Like a cat
Now that I am walking the dog, another phrasing for the second clue of Time Surfing comes to mind: ‘Mark the transition’. The full formula reads: ‘Do like a cat, which stays in the doorway for a moment before slipping outside: mark the transition’.

Zen mastery does not give special assignments. However, it is indeed a new era that is beginning. And in that, it is good to mark the transition. In my case, by cleaning out the cabinet called altar and thus making room for the new.

*This post has been automatically translated from Dutch