Dirty Mind

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

This past weekend, I participated in a volunteer-led clean-up of a neighborhood in Brooklyn. My work slot was two hours long. When I showed up, they gave me a bag and a set of tongs: “Go pick up garbage.” I was told.

The day was gloriously beautiful and sunny. Everyone was out in the street and enjoying the wonderful weather. Happy people were walking dogs, pushing strollers, and having lunch al fresco. And then there was me. A T-shirt clad dude using a robot-like claw to pick-up cigarette butts while trailing an obnoxiously large trash bag. It might have looked normal if there were other people picking-up garbage, too. But I was alone. All I needed was an orange jumpsuit to complete the ensemble.

Now, I could have brought mindfulness to bear on the activity (uni-tasking! What a concept!), and enjoyed the nice weather like the other people around me. Instead, my mind came up with a myriad of thoughts and distractions. First, I wondered how other people would see me, and I felt embarrassed. “People must think that I broke the law, and I’m doing community service or something.” I thought. Then, I became angry. “How come there are 15 people at the volunteer station and I’m the only one cleaning the street?” I wondered testily. And, “Doesn’t anybody know how to use a garbage can anymore?! How did your used latex gloves wind-up on my sidewalk?!” Then, I found the whole process delightfully absurd and called my wife, repeatedly. I shared all of my musings. “I’m hanging up now,” she said.

Gradually, the endless torrent of thoughts started to relent (“This is a great exercise to cure narcissism! Wait, didn’t I think that already?”). I slowly was becoming more engaged in the activity. Focused on the area around me, I was more alert to the bits of detritus on the sidewalk and in tree pits. Even my posture changed. I went from a hunched, “don’t look at me” pose to standing more erect and comfortable. The trash pick-up became neither embarrassing nor noble. It was neither regrettably necessary nor an act of civic pride. Without these thoughts and judgments, I was simply picking-up garbage. Nothing more, nothing less.

Just like garbage on the sidewalk, our mind is littered with thoughts. Our internal dialogue is often “talking trash,” which we take seriously. Perhaps implicitly, we consider our thoughts to be very important, at least until the next one comes along. Then that other thought is discarded. If we’re not careful, we’ll end up with a mind cluttered with throw-away thoughts that only get in the way of our direct experience. Through mindfulness practice though, we can work on keeping our mind relatively litter-free. It just takes a little time and effort.