This is an AI-generated transcript from auto-generated subtitles for the video Mindfulness at Home: Spring Cleaning for the Heart with Rachel Lewis. It likely contains inaccuracies, especially with speaker attribution if there are multiple speakers.

Mindfulness at Home: Spring Cleaning for the Heart - Rachel Lewis

The following talk was given by Rachel Lewis at The Sati Center in Redwood City, CA on February 09, 2026. Please visit the website www.audiodharma.org for more information.

Mindfulness at Home: Spring Cleaning for the Heart

It is good to be here today. As we are gathering, I want to appreciate folks who have their cameras on. It gives a nice sense of being together.

It is a poignant time to be gathering, to be slowing down. I was at a concert here in Vancouver the other night, and before the musicians started playing, we had a minute of silence for Iran. I feel like there are so many parts of the world that we could have minutes of silence for; we could spend this whole morning doing that. So, I just want to name that. There is a lot going on right now. By the same token, it is very important work that we are doing here—doing our best to bring a sense of composure, of balance, of steadiness, of inner capacity to meet the challenges of the world.

I really want to appreciate each of you for making the time to be here. I am here in what is currently known as British Columbia on the unceded land of the Squamish, Tsleil-Waututh, and Musqueam peoples. I live right by a road that is currently known as the Kingsway. Apparently, the folks who have lived here for millennia primarily used the water as a way of getting around, but when they did need to go inland, the route they took is the track that became the road called Kingsway. I am always trying to learn more about the history of this part of the world.

In the description of this workshop that I shared through the Sati Center, I called out the origin of the month name "February," which comes from Februa, a Roman purification rite. Apparently, it involved people running around naked and smacking each other with strips of wolf hide or something similar. We get the better end of the deal getting to stay fully clothed! But this time of year feels like a time of renewal, of letting go of things that don't serve us. I was getting curious about how that might play out both on an inner level and on an outer level.

One of the tendencies that we can bring to our meditation practice is to use it as an escape from our everyday life. We might think, "I want my mind to get nice and quiet so things don't bug me for a while." Everybody needs a break; it is not wrong to do that. It is just that there is the potential for so much more growth when we are integrating our practice into our lives—when we are not making quite so much separation between the cushion and the rest of our life.

How that can play out is by turning our mindfulness to what it is like to create a good home for ourselves inside by cultivating qualities like tranquility, kindness, and steadiness of mind. Those things make a good home, a good little nest for us in the heart.

We can also look at how we bring mindfulness to how we live in our physical space. Our physical space can be a reflection of patterns going on inside that we are not even aware of. A few days ago, somebody asked how I was doing, and I said, "Oh yeah, I'm fine. Everything's good." Then I realized I hadn't done dishes in three days. I thought, "Right, okay. The truth is I'm feeling a little overstretched right now." Bringing mindfulness to that—letting ourselves take in information from our physical surroundings—can clue us in a little bit more to what is going on inside.

On the flip side is how our physical space affects the mind. This is part of the traditional trainings for monastics. In the Visuddhimagga¹, there is a discussion of the personality types. Humans love slotting things into categories, and this is the simplest typology; there are only three categories: greed, hatred, and delusion.

The instruction is that if you have a greedy type to train, put them in a dingy, run-down place. If they have a view, maybe let it be a view of a dumpster. If you have an aversive type to train, give them a place with a view of a beautiful lake. Make sure there are fresh flowers, and that everything is elegant and harmonious. If you have a deluded type to train, make sure that their place is unconfusing and that there is no clutter. Deluded types tend to accumulate clutter and get distracted by it, so make sure that only what they absolutely need is in their space so they won't get sidetracked.

Because we all have all three tendencies, we can already start to see how decluttering outside could help with decluttering inside. For those of us who have spent time at retreat centers, walking into the assigned room and seeing those plain white walls, one bed, maybe a desk and a sink—just the real basic necessities—helps the mind empty out. We think, "Oh, this is so great. I feel so calm and supported by the simplicity here." Then we go back home and we want more of this. The mind likes to accumulate things, doesn't it?

We are not going to be spending time doing the work of heavy decluttering today, because that requires a lot of cognitive activity and decision-making. But maybe this will plant a seed for some interest in simplifying what you own.

What I am sharing today corresponds to my own thoughts trying to root them in Buddhist teachings, but many of you are likely familiar with Marie Kondo, who approaches decluttering from a Shinto and animist point of view, which I think is really precious. Looking at your relationship with objects delights me, even though it is different from the tradition that I am trained in. There is also someone named Alyssa Allegretti who teaches on how our external surroundings affect our internal surroundings. If the spiritual side of housekeeping is something you want to do a deeper dive on, I would suggest connecting with her.

Another way our relationship with our household reflects our relationship inside came up for me recently. Almost a year ago, I had a friend come and stay with me. She walked in and the first thing she said was, "Oh, it's so Rachel here. What a Rachel space you've got." My immediate response was, "Wow, thank you. I feel really comfortable here."

That made me think about another time, right around when I was starting to meditate. My roommates and I were grad students, and we liked to throw parties. I had prepared a fruit plate for one party, and my roommate—we had a really sweet relationship—looked at this fruit plate and said, "Wow, that's a Rachel fruit plate." My immediate thought was, "How dare you? How dare you say that my fruit plate is worthless and dumb? This is a good fruit plate; there is starfruit and mango." Then I realized that what he meant was, "No, this is a good fruit plate." That was his association with "Rachel"—thoughtful or quirky.

Seeing those two moments of different relationships with being seen in the physical world by other people gave me a sense of confidence in the practice. We are doing something important here. Even when it feels like we are just slogging along and trying to orient to the breath, there is something that shifts, and those shifts show up in unexpected ways.

Having a physical space where we can be at home is so important that we almost take it for granted. People like to say experiences are more important than things, but things enable experiences. To wash the dishes, you need to have the right tools for the job. One of the things that pleases me in how I have my space set up is that I have just the right tools for house cleaning set up right where they need to be. Having the systems in place to make tasks easier is a way of making your physical surroundings more supportive, more easeful, and less stressful.

Having order at home also creates a space where other people can feel welcome. Refuge in Sangha involves being together, and having a space where you can be together enables that.

Having a home where we can be at ease helps incline the mind towards contentment. I think I got this phrase from Alyssa Allegretti: instead of "existential dread," having a sense of "existential contentment." Just a basic sense of well-being, like, "It's good to be here." I am saying that in a slightly silly way, but that sense of "it's good to be here" is absolutely essential for meditation practice. In the commentaries, it says that the proximate cause for concentration is contentment. So, having physical surroundings where you can look around and say, "Right, I'm physically safe. There are no tigers here," allows us to feel a sense of well-being, non-distraction, and non-urgency. That is what enables the mind to really do this thing called meditation. Not that everything has to be perfect or beautifully decorated; just a sense of "okayness" is an indispensable prerequisite for the mind settling deeply.

As people who have often been introduced to meditation through courses or apps as an individual approach, we can lose sight of the way that meditation historically has been something done in community. Living in community means chores. People need to maintain their living space. They need to help prepare meals together.

There is a story of a Western practitioner who had gone to sit with Ajahn Chah² in Thailand. He was really dedicating himself to practice and not bothering with a lot of the niceties of being in community. Ajahn Chah noticed that his kuti (his hut) where he was living was getting really shabby. He asked this practitioner about it, and the practitioner said, "Oh yeah, it doesn't matter that rain is getting in through the thatch. I'm practicing equanimity." Ajahn Chah said, "The equanimity of a water buffalo. Go fix your thatch."

Ajahn Chah was having none of this idea that neglecting the architecture that supports our practice life is a sign that your practice is more meritorious. He was saying the opposite: get the basics in order, and then practice.

The other theme I want to highlight is breaking down this sense of meditation as a separate activity that is special and different from our daily life. Instead, we see our practice as just getting closer to conditions as they are. Being with what is predominant is the core instruction for my practice.

Every Saturday morning after the sit that my friends and I lead, we have a little dharma discussion. This morning we were talking about wise effort. I was sharing a story of a time when a teacher was encouraging me to just be with things as they are. My response was to say, "Oh no, I'll get around to that, but first I'll manufacture the right experience to have, and then I'll be with that." That pervasive sense of wishful thinking—I wish things were different than they are—can get in the way. When we allow ourselves to be with whatever is predominant, to be with things as they are, we start learning in a deeper way. We can allow ourselves to see our inner mess, and we can allow ourselves to see our outer mess. "Oh right, I thought I just vacuumed, but the floor is all gritty again. Huh. That's how things are in samsara³."

That brings up the possibility of wise effort both in our meditation practice and in the rest of our lives. A lot of us fall prey to all-or-nothing thinking. "It's not worth trying to tidy up just a bit; I need to declutter the whole house or it doesn't count." Or, "There is a particular special experience I should be having in meditation, or my diligent practice doesn't count." Both of those kinds of discounting come from the same all-or-nothing, perfectionist, rejecting dynamic.

We get a chance to see this and counteract it by just doing a little bit. That is what we are going to be doing today. We are going to be doing just a little bit of sitting. We are going to be doing just a little bit of mindful housework. And we are going to be trying to maintain a continuity of mindfulness and awareness throughout.

When I initially came up with this theme, I thought maybe we could just focus on decluttering the mind and heart. If that is your choice—to use the rest of this period for sitting and formal walking practice—that is just fine. But I am intrigued by the idea of making doing dishes a mindfulness practice as well as the other things that we think of as mindful movement practices.

We will sit, do a bit of movement, sit again, do a bit more movement, and then open it up for discussion.

Guided Practice

Checking in with the body before we start. There are three stationary postures that you could use for practice: standing, lying down, and sitting. Before you choose a stationary posture, just check and see. We have already been sitting and listening for a while. Maybe just turn your head and look around your space. Not looking at the details, just taking in that this is a good space to be in. This is a suitable space for meditation.

Looking down and looking up. Orienting to the physical space that I am in. When you have been listening to somebody talk through Zoom, the mind can go into this virtual Zoom space and lose track of the fact that there is a body.

In the Satipatthana Sutta⁴, one of the most important things it says is to maintain the awareness that there is a body just to the extent necessary to maintain a continuity of awareness. So, do you know that there is a body right now? There probably is a body. How do you know there is a body? Does this body want to be lying down or standing up, or is sitting okay?

If you are sitting, can there be a sense of a firm connection with the earth? If you are in a chair, maybe pushing into your feet a little to feel the earth beneath you. If you are on a cushion, just noticing the solidity beneath your ankles or knees. The weight of the body resting on the weight of the earth.

What would it be like to bring in a sense of existential contentment right from here? What if the earth wasn't just tolerating your weight? What if the earth was glad that you were here? What if the earth was happy to support you? Letting the body take up just a bit more space. Letting it get wide. You might feel a sense of the body relaxing on its own.

I feel like stationary meditation postures are like a yoga practice except very dull. The body sinks into these postures more and more over time. Anything that is extra can be released. Extra holding, extra tension.

There can also be this sense of vigor. There is an energy associated with being alive that can express itself in the upright spine. If you are standing or sitting, one vertebra can be stacked on top of another. The head is poised on top of the neck. You might deliberately stretch your neck a little bit, stretching the crown of the head up towards the ceiling. Finding that length, that uprightness. That strength of the spine lets the rest of the body relax. Face can be soft. Shoulders can hang. The ribs and the belly can move freely with the breath.

This body is doing something different than what we normally do. It is not racing around and it is not falling asleep. It is upright and energized, but also relaxed and at ease. The body can set the mind a good example. The attention can be relaxed and receptive, available for what is predominant in this moment, and clearly knowing. We are not hyper-focusing and we are not spacing out. We are just landing right here.

One thing that can help us with this aspiration of decluttering the mind is to give it something specific to orient to. You could orient to sounds. You could orient to a sense of the body sitting. I am going to give instructions as if you were choosing to orient to breath. Feel free to give yourself different instructions if you choose.

The breath is breathing itself, and we can bring our awareness to that process happening on its own. The feeling of bringing our awareness to the breath is actually like being in a conversation with a good friend. We are just interested in what the breath has to say. What is the length of this breath? What is its texture? Where in the body do we sense it most distinctly? What makes this breath different from any other breath?

We are not clamping the attention down around the breath. We are not pouncing on the breath with our awareness. We are just receiving it. There is a sense of intentionality here, for sure, but in the same way that there might be if we were just tracking what a friend was saying. Just staying oriented.

It can be helpful to have a sense that we are staying present with the breath for very short moments—just for the length of one half-breath. We are not doing twenty minutes of breath awareness. We are doing this one in-breath, and then this one out-breath. The attention connects with the start of the in-breath, then it connects with the start of the next out-breath. So simple. We connect with this in-breath and stay intimate with it for as long as it lasts. We are not biting off more than we can chew here. We are just nibbling at the moment. One half-breath at a time.

As we orient to the breath, the mind will go to other things instead. Sometimes it is things happening in the present moment—sounds or body sensations. That is fine. We can let them be in the center of our awareness for a moment, and then at the right time remember our intention around orienting to the breath.

Sometimes the mind picks up thoughts about the past or future, or starts making interpretations of the present. When that happens, we can just relax and let go. We notice, "Alright, the mind has gotten complicated." And we reconnect with the intention to be simple with the breath. We drop our thoughts mid-sentence, letting it take care of itself. Coming back, listening to our good friend, the breath.

One other thing we can do at this moment when we are reconnecting is notice how good it feels to simplify. It is good to be here. It is good to be simple. It just feels good to relax and let go.

As we do this process over and over again, we notice the weightiness of the mind that gets cluttered up with thoughts, and the lightness of the mind that is awake, alert, and oriented to this moment with nothing added.

[Silence for practice]

One of the things we notice as we do a practice like breath awareness is the tendency of the mind to prefer exciting things—to want something different, something more stimulating. It takes a while for the mind to acquire a taste for neutrality. I think that is Gil Fronsdal's phrase: to be willing to stay present with this very plain experience of just sitting and breathing. The truth is that a lot of our life is kind of neutral. If we are reserving our attention for things that are highly stimulating, we are going to be unwilling to pay attention a lot of the time.

As we persist with this practice, the mind gets decluttered. The perceptions get purified. We become more able to see what is really here. I would like to take a little bit of time to turn this clarified perception outwards.

We will have a fifteen-minute practice period. You have several choices:

1. Formal walking practice: If you are familiar with that.
2. Mindful movement practice: Just be in the body.
3. Simple repetitive household task: I suggest you pick one single task.

When I said "household task," my mind immediately started listing half a dozen things: unload the dishwasher, get laundry started, vacuum. But I think I am actually going to sweep the kitchen and bathroom floors because those are contained areas and the process is straightforward. Those are tasks that don't take a lot of processing power. They can take any steadiness of mind that built during the stationary practice and keep on building some momentum of awareness.

If you pick a task like washing dishes, stay with the task itself. Washing dishes is one I often use when talking about selfing and non-self. You get to notice the difference between washing the dishes—which is just lifting, moving, placing, noticing wetness, dryness, warmth, coolness—and being the one who is washing the dishes (or being the "only one around here who ever washes the dishes properly").

We have the opportunity to notice simplicity and complexity. The simplicity of doing the thing, and the complexity of becoming the one who is doing the thing.

Pick one straightforward task. If you finish before the fifteen minutes are over, that is fine; maybe do some mindful movement. If you don't finish, that is also fine. We will have another period afterwards. You can just leave the vacuum in the middle of the floor.

If you have chosen a task, take a moment and look at the space where you are going to be doing it. Very often when I get housekeeping energy, I get into a tizzy—a lot of energy, but it is frantic or flustered. What I am inviting us to practice right now is a more stable energy where there is intentionality, a sense of composure, and deliberateness in how we start and how we conclude. So, look at the space, do the thing, and once the thing is done, let that be enough. Do not go on to the next thing.

[15 Minute Practice Interval]

In the last minute of this moving practice time, take your time to perhaps wash your hands and come back to this stationary posture. Before you completely settle in, take a moment to look at the space that you were just tending to and notice what comes up in your heart.

I swept the kitchen and the bathroom. As I was doing it, I noticed a discounting tendency coming up: "Oh, it's good that this is cleaner, but I really should mop it as well." Notice that. It is natural when that happens, but we don't need to buy into those thoughts. All we were setting out to do was to bring a little more order than existed before. If a little more order exists, that's great. If it is not perfect, well, it is samsara.

There is a story I often tell of a student driving a teacher through traffic to a talk. The student was getting uptight because they were going to be late. Finally, the teacher said, "It's samsara. It's not like it was going to work out anyway." Having that level-setting in the back of our heads is helpful to keep us from trying to perfect things that are never going to be perfect.

Notice what the body feels like having been in motion. Notice what is coming up in the heart—if that felt simple and easy, or if there were complexities. Notice anything that was stirred up. Notice if it felt hard to stop even though it didn't feel finished, or if you felt relieved to be off the hook.

We are going to do another short period of stationary practice. Check in with the body. See if you have the right props, if you are warm enough. If sleepiness is in the mind, you might want to stand up. If there is pain, you might want to lie down. Settle into a posture that has a good balance of ease and alertness.

In the last stationary period, we were orienting to the breath as an anchor. You could do that again, or you could try on a different instruction: just be with whatever is predominant.

If what is predominant right now is a sound, be available for the sound. If it is a body sensation, be with that. Sometimes the breath won't come into the foreground on its own. The basic instruction is having a sense of composure, of non-discursive awareness when it comes to changing objects. Allowing things to be just the way they are. Not picking and choosing what gets your attention. Just right here, right now. What is alive in this moment?

If you are aware of sounds, can you be wholeheartedly aware of sounds? If you are aware of the body, can you be wholeheartedly aware of the body? Inviting the attention to land right where it is.

Notice how the attention is. If it is foggy, invite it to land more distinctly. If it is scattered, relax and simplify. If your attention feels balanced and steady, notice that, enjoy that.

[Silence for practice]

We will bring this stationary practice to a close and transition into another movement period. As before, you could choose formal walking practice, mindful movement, or complete a task you started. If you got partway through scrubbing the bathtub, you could bring it to completion. If you have tools or cleaning supplies out, maybe take some time to put them away.

Another possibility is to take on another discrete task. Or, do something small to make your space feel lovelier or more welcoming. It could be making your bed or fluffing the cushions. I got some tulips at the farmers market, so I am going to refresh the water. As I say that, I can see my mind thinking, "Oh, and I could also take out the compost." I am not going to do that. I am just going to restrict it to that one simple task.

This is a chance to see what the mind does when we bring our mindfulness and energy to deliberately doing something—stepping out of the purely receptive mode. A lot of us get the idea that meditation equals passivity. Our culture encourages us to be results-oriented doers, so when we come to meditation, we are taught to be receptive. But sometimes we overshoot and get the idea that meditation means we are not allowed to make effort or intervene. The truth is, like a physiotherapist might say, we are opening up a full range of motion. We have the option of going full on, and the option of sitting back. Within that range, we can discern the appropriate response.

When we were in our sitting posture, the amount of doing was very subtle. When we are sweeping a floor, it looks more active, but the inner experience can be not too dissimilar—checking that we have the right balance of intensity and ease.

A friend of mine has a daily practice of making himself a cup of matcha in a tea ceremony way. He said bringing awareness to which parts of the body need to be engaged and which can be relaxed helped him understand embodiment. When he is whisking, his wrist needs to be doing something, but he noticed he was clenching his butt. That was extra. He was able to bring more ease into his body even when he was making something happen. You might bring that inquiry in: when lifting and moving things, which parts of the body need to be engaged, and which are trying to be helpful but aren't actually adding anything?

Let's take twenty minutes for this.

[20 Minute Practice Interval]

As we gather together again, notice how it feels in the body to have just been moving around.

Discussion and Reflections

Speaker: Hi Rachel. Thank you for doing this. I notice a couple of tendencies. I reach for a vacuum cleaner, then I see something else that needs to be done, and I just do it. There is no planning involved. That was one tendency. The second one is organizing papers—that is a whole lot also, bringing that to the chore rather than the daily things.

Rachel: Thanks, Ellie. One thing to bear in mind is that what we have been doing today is an exercise in bringing mindfulness to the act of making things a little bit better in our space, rather than doing a deep clean. If you had set aside a whole day for cleaning, jumping from one task to another would eventually get everything done. But here we are prioritizing the awareness of the task rather than the most effective way of getting tasks done.

If your tendency is to go from the middle of one task into another, you might make the choice to write down "dust baseboards" and save it for another time, just so you can focus on vacuuming. This speaks to the discounting tendency of mind—discounting anything that isn't everything. "If I can't clean my whole house, I don't get credit for having swept just one area."

That tendency shows up in other areas of life. Just because we can't stop everything bad happening in the world doesn't mean it isn't meaningful to stop one bad thing. Just because we can't feed every hungry child doesn't mean it isn't meaningful if we feed one. Any meritorious act we undertake is not going to be the totality of what the world needs, but it is still worth doing.

Diana: I've had some real breakthroughs just so far. In the meditation on breath, doing the half-breath... the simplicity of that didn't mean the mind didn't continue racing, but I saw more of what it was doing, and it kind of got quiet. That attention span got easier and carried into the walking. For my little project, I decided I loved the idea of straightening the room. It took all of five minutes. I was really observing the internal and external—the touching, the seeing. I felt a wholeness in "straightening the room." The deliberateness was helpful. I put things away, closed the drawer. I didn't bow to it at the end, but I did go by and appreciate it. It took away a sense of "it's another chore I have to do because my mother made me do it." It was just the specificness and simplicity.

Rachel: Thank you, Diana. That through-line of not biting off more than you can chew—if you are with the breath, be with half a breath. If you have fifteen minutes to clean, don't tell yourself you should be cleaning the whole house. There is an unburdening there.

The word "burden" makes me think of the Metta Sutta⁵. There is that line about being "unburdened with duties." It makes me reflect on how easy it is to get burdened by duties that aren't in themselves onerous. I remember being on a three-month retreat and having a few small tasks to do—return something to the office, move luggage. In my mind, it was this huge, onerous thing. But when I thought about it, each task would take two and a half minutes.

Also, the way we can get oppositional about housekeeping standards—if this was somebody else's standard, we can feel like it is defying them to not maintain it. When I was a kid, my dad told me, "If you do something because somebody tells you what you should do, you're letting them control you. And if you do the opposite, you're also letting them control you." The only way to not be controlled is to take a step back and see what makes sense to you to do. There can be a freedom in realizing, "I'm doing this for me, not for Granny." It is like the Buddha's words to the Kalamas: don't believe things just because an authority figure told you, but check and see for yourself what leads to benefit.

Maureen: I experienced a lot of small pleasures I hadn't anticipated. I paired socks. Why is that so delightful? It was like these little sparks of happy. "Oh, I finished this one!" It was sock happiness. Then I dusted the blinds—magnificently dusty. There is so much satisfaction. If I were in a hurry, I don't think I would have noticed that every time I matched socks, it rendered perkiness.

Rachel: What you are reminding me of is Thich Nhat Hanh's line: "Happiness is available. Please help yourself." When we haven't slowed down enough to see that—like solving a jigsaw puzzle with the socks—we miss it. It is a subtle, mundane pleasure, but a satisfying one.

Sandy: So much has resonated for me. The piece that stood out was the exercise of doing things mindfully. Two pieces helped me understand why it is restful. One was the intention—creating a frame. "I'm going to be emptying the dishwasher mindfully, and this is all I'm doing." That helps me anchor my intention. The other piece was de-identifying with it. This experience is about the light on the dishes, the movement of hands, the colors. It is not me. It is not about my identity. Untangling the self-referential tendency of mind is so restful.

Rachel: Thanks, Sandy. It is amazing how fraught things get when we add that sense of "I'm the one who's doing this and I have to do it right." Dropping that is such a relief.

Another tool we can use to step out of that sense of being the one doing things is the sense of making an offering—bodhicitta⁶. I remember walking down a hallway at work and feeling self-conscious. I got playful with it and tried on the idea: "May I walk down this hallway for the benefit of all beings?" It sounds silly, but it made it lighter. It is not about me at all; the hallway is being walked down, and there is this wish for goodness.

Dave (Chat): Letting the eyes come along for the ride and the opinions slide to the back.

Rachel: I think it was James Baldwin who had a line about looking at the world through kind eyes. One source of relief in stationary practice is that the world impinges less. When we open our eyes again, can we set the intention to look with kind eyes? Judging in the sense of discernment needs to happen, but judging in the sense of rejection can be let go of.

Padma Kumar: I wanted to mention a sense of appreciation and gratitude for having others alongside me. I didn't realize how supportive that would be. Also, doing the task with support helped me understand how my identity is bound up with getting tasks done—goal setting and achievement. Doing the task reflected back to me the attitude I often bring: as if I am somehow "good" or have achieved something just by the sense of completion, as opposed to the mind I was bringing to it.

Rachel: There is a deep pleasure in taking things off a to-do list. It is interesting to notice where the satisfaction of getting things done spills over into becoming the one who has accomplished this thing. There is a little inflation or stiffness there. When we become the "one who accomplishes things," it creates grounds for conflict with people who accomplish things differently. If things are just getting done, there is less scope for conflict.

Marian: I decided to fold some laundry. Suddenly I had this gratitude for my laundry, for it being there. We take everything for granted. It was a simple, happy, grateful moment. Usually I fold laundry watching TV, but this was peaceful.

Rachel: That sense of gratitude towards our possessions can help clarify which ones have served their purpose and are ready to go serve somebody else. Seeing your clothing, your utensils as things you could be grateful for—and noticing when that feeling isn't present—maybe it is time for someone else to own this thing.

We will do one more ten-minute stationary practice.

Check in with the body again. See how this dear body that we could be grateful for wants to be configured right now. Bring in a sense of appreciation for yourself for having set aside this time for your practice. Caring for the heart. Caring for your physical space. Caring for the habits of mind that you bring into the world.

Seeing the goodness that is inherent in this choice. In the commentaries, it says that the approximate cause for goodwill is seeing goodness. So seeing goodness in yourself has the potential to give rise to goodwill for yourself.

Perhaps take a moment to appreciate this body that moved in space in ways that you wanted it to today. We can take our body for granted or just see what is wrong with it. But today we asked it to fold laundry, and it folded laundry. Isn't that great? Thank you, body. You and me are a great team.

Just taking a moment to rest in this sense of kindness and appreciation. Trying on something weird—maybe saying out loud: "I am grateful for my goodness." How does it feel to say that?

Letting the heart open up to gratitude for the goodness of all the people who are here right now. We can get tunnel vision, see only what is wrong in the world. But there are so many people wanting to purify the mind, to help make things better. I am grateful for the goodness of all my companions on the path—those near and far, known and unknown. I am grateful for those living now, the ancestors, the lineage of teachers stretching back to the Buddha, and for future generations who will be the heirs of the goodness we bring into being.

Just taking a few minutes to let the heart rest in this vast field of goodness. This heart wants to make things better, wants to help, wants to care. This heart delights in goodness. Orienting to goodness can remind us that it is possible to make things a bit better—whether that is the joy of getting socks paired or the joy of standing up to bullies. Just because we can't do it all doesn't mean we can't do anything. When we connect with the goodness of those around us, our hearts get stronger. Goodness spreads out.

As we come towards the closing of our time, reminding ourselves that this isn't a self-improvement project. It is a gift to the world. Setting the intention that any benefits from this practice be shared with all beings everywhere. Delighting in the ways that our material ease allows us to bring benefit to others.

Wishing for all beings the sense of being at home in themselves. The sense of existential ease and satisfaction that is possible in their home environments. May this practice be for the benefit of all beings everywhere. May all beings be free.

Thank you for your practice everyone. It is really good to see kind faces on my screen.