Credit goes out to my brother this evening for teaching me about resolve, method, and doing the right thing.

Sawan, Scraping Candle Wax
Off The Laminate Floor
With His Penknife

While I was meditating, Sawan came into my bedroom to check that the oil burner was ok, and that the water it needed to keep the fragrance circulating the air had not run out. It turns out the water had all evaporated, and if left any longer, may just overheat the clay burner, which as he put it “may have burnt you alive”. How thoughtful – my little brother had my best interest at heart.

He didn’t want to blow out the candle in case the fumes polluted the air, so he gently picked up the oil burner and made his way out of the bedroom. At that point he slipped on my bank paying-in book that dad had pushed under the door earlier (thank you, dad, for banking that cheque for me), and so the clay oil burner shifted in his hands and the candle wax went flying onto the 6-month almost-new laminate flooring.

Moments later, Sawan returns into the room, knees to the floor, penknife in hand, scraping the solidified wax off the floor.

This demonstrated to me 3 clear qualities:

(1) Sawan had a very thoughtful intention that he wanted to ensure my bedroom didn’t get burnt down, and to get the oil burner out of the room without disturbing my meditation, so that he could blow out the candle outside.

(2) His method for achieving what he set out to do was almost perfect, but what caused him not to succeed was that it wasn’t thought out completely.  This taught me that resolve (a true intention) and method (the path for achieving it) need to perfectly align.
(3) Sawan immediately pushed back his other commitments (meeting his girlfriend), to spend a good 20 minutes thoroughly cleaning the floor, making it look as good as new. He didn’t leave it for me to clear up, justifying his decision with something like “well I was only doing it for you, so to hell with you, I’m going out and you can clear it up”. No, Sawan ended up getting the job done completely. In this given situation, my brother patiently did the right thing, and I simply stood back and observed.

Thanks for teaching me about resolve, method, and doing the right thing, bro.