The simple act of washing your hands helps you to take care of yourself and the world around you. InsightLA put together this video featuring founding teacher Trudy Goodman sharing her instructions for mindful hand washing. You can see this simple act as a chance to cultivate your mindfulness and loving-kindness practice, as Goodman describes below.
Transcription: Imagine your hands are covered with orange Cheeto dust and you’re wearing a white sweater, like me. The length of time that it will take to carefully wash off all the grease and orange stuff is how long we’re being asked to wash our hands multiple times a day right now. So that’s how long, but in what spirit — with what attitude — do we do it? Just distractedly, quickly try to get it out of the way and maybe cheat it a little shorter? Or can we see this act as a chance to actually cultivate and strengthen our mindfulness and
loving-kindness practice?
So, as you approach the sink, you can place your hands on the sink and just feel your feet on the floor. Grounding yourself in the present moment right here, right now, you would be so mindful of how you turn on the faucet, how you get the temperature of the water, how you put the soap on your hands and suds them, turning off the water while you rub in between the fingers, around the fingernails not forgetting your thumbs. As you’re doing this, you realize that when you’re so very present and attentive, this is mindfulness. This is washing your hands mindfully.
Through this simple act you’re keeping yourself safe and you’re also taking care of your world — the world that needs our care right now. We’re all in this together. Anytime we have a chance to expand beyond our limited self-identity and include more of each other, and more of the world, in our hearts, this is a good thing. We can train our hearts to incline in this direction of inclusivity, of kindness, and of appreciation for our life. For the aliveness of getting to wash our hands in this very moment in all eternity.
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