The saying that the body should be as a doormat — consider the doormat in its natural state: when another approaches with soiled and muddied feet and wipes them upon it, has it ever been known to complain? Not once. There is no doormat in any household that has ever uttered a word of protest. Our forebears and ancestors employed this simile with deliberate intention — to remind us that in whatever work one undertakes, one must give it the full measure of one’s strength, without self-importance, without the selectiveness of pride, and without the discriminating of tasks. So long as the work is honest and of righteous livelihood, one must simply enter into it wholeheartedly.
The Master Nun would say repeatedly: from her earliest childhood, when the time came that she must hire herself out to empty and wash chamber pots, she accepted it willingly — for it was a livelihood of purity and honesty. But to go and steal from another — though her head be severed and her limbs broken — she would never consent to do.
To make the body as a doormat — to endure whatever blows or hardships may come — all of this she was willing to bear, for the sake of an honest livelihood. But to engage in deception and to take dishonestly from others merely for the sake of fine clothing and outward appearance — this she refused absolutely and without exception.
Therefore, one who can truly make their body as a doormat has achieved a reduction of physical friction and conflict — and through this, the heart is brought to a place of calm and peace. This constitutes the third level of inner tranquility.
Source: The book Warm-Hearted Family (Khrøpkhrua Opun), page 30
