Are washing machines by default the cleanest machines in the world, given that they are fed detergents regularly? Turned out that the front load washing machine at home had an unexpected deficiency. There is a ring of rubber tubing that prevents water from seeping out of the latching door when it closes. Around this ring’s flap, grime tends to accumulate over time, becoming an alien black substance – the epitome of griminess I suppose. But this isn’t an obvious problem when you don’t wash a full load. You won’t even know there is any dirt there.
But when you stuff the machine with, say a couple of huge bedsheets, the spinning seems to cause the sheets to reach into the otherwise hard to reach parts of the flap, dredging out the dirt, which sticks to the cloth. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing – because while cleaning the sheets, the machine is being cleaned too. The truth is, the machine collects dirt during every normal wash. Only when under such extreme usage, does it get cleaned out. Counterintuitively, the more you wash, the more dirt you’ll discover.
As a spiritual metaphor, we need to reflect if we are accumulating defilements with every transpired thought, word and deed. Are fueling a time-bomb of negative karma? Or are we defusing it in time? Do extreme situations bring our the best or the worst in us? How do we know if there are no extreme situations yet? While we have Buddha-nature hidden from view (though it’s timeless), we too have Mara-nature (though it’s transient) out of the sight of unmindfulness. In fact, it is due to being not aware of the latter that clouds the first, not letting it shine forth, just as it’s the hidden dirt that prevents a really thorough and clean wash.
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Washing the Washer
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