After The Ecstasy, The Laundry.
What does “life-changing” actually mean?
I often come across books, workshops, apps, movies or experiences described as “life-changing”.
I used to expect some of them to change my life, too - starting a book, attending a meditation retreat, or taking a course, with the hope that this will be it.
Yet if we define it that way, the term “life-changing” can be unfair both to the experience, and to us. It could carry an expectation heavier than anyone can bear.
If they are really “life changing”, what will happen once our life has changed? What do we expect from ourselves?
Are we expecting to wake up as a new (and a better) person, with everything changed once and for all? To be free of all the things we dislike?
“Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.
After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.”
As this Buddhist quote suggests, life surely will go on. There is still wood to chop and water to carry. We go back to work. We do the laundry.
But bit by bit, every experience—or every book, person, or even a poem—shifts how we see the world.
Our life changes, not in the way we thought it would do overnight, but it changes with every small activity that we approach with new insights.
It is in the work we do afterwards that is life-changing.
Jack Kornfield suggests in the book “After the Ecstasy, the Laundry”:
“Strictly speaking, there are no enlightened people, there is only enlightened activity.”
It turns out the beauty is not in arriving somewhere new, but in how we walk through the world we already live in.
Every insight, every fresh perspective is a quiet invitation to re-enter life more fully.
There is a story of an eager Zen student who arrives at a temple and says, “I want to join the community and work to attain enlightenment. How long will it take me?” “Ten years,” replies the master. “Well, how about if I really work and double my efforts?” “Twenty years.” “Hey, just a moment. That’s not fair! Why did you double it?” “In your case,” says the master, “I’m afraid it will be thirty years.”
The Inner Scout has been on a long but necessary break—busy chopping wood and carrying water :)
If you’ve got thoughts, I’d love to hear them in the comments!
Till next time,
Yiğit
Welcome back 🙏🏽