Now With Gravity

Transcript

Let’s talk about doing things now with gravity.

I was thinking about this occurrence. I was sitting with a friend I care for very much. But this friend, she always seems like she’s in a rush. Trying to get to the next thing.

I remember we sat down to eat a delicious meal at a restaurant. I asked her knowing about this tendency of hers if she’d say grace before we eat.

And she said it but she did it like this “Thank you for the food, thanks to the people who brought it to us, thanks to the waiters, thanks to the farmers.”

I thought later “That isn’t exactly what I was looking for.” She said the words but the spirit was lacking and I thought later “What if I could ask her to do it again and say it with gravity?”

Like now is the opportunity to give thanks to everybody, to the universe, to the moment. With gravity, with force with lectio divina with a divine reading or impulse into every word.

What if we could say it like it was something special? Cause it is, that’s why we say grace.

I also thought about I used to go to McDonald’s, I haven’t been to McDonald’s in a very long time but say I go into McDonalds and I buy a meal and sit down. I eat the burger in a rush thinking I still have fries, I’ll enjoy those.

Then I eat the fries quickly and think I still have the Sunday. Then I eat that and I didn’t have anything left.

Now why didn’t I just take my time and enjoy every element of the meal? Why didn’t I do it with gravity?

So we mentioned before about the Toltec agreements and they talk about doing everything excellently.

It doesn’t matter what it is, we can do it with presence. When we use that presence, just washing a single fork to place on the dish rack, noticing what we’re doing.

We do experience the joy of it. It doesn’t have to be a big thing, it doesn’t matter if we’re laying a brick to build an outhouse or a cathedral.

Just like Paul Newman said in The Hustler “I don’t care what it is, a guy is a bricklayer and he knows he can make it come off.”

That can be great, I recommend anyone listen to that monologue its the best part of the movie.

Everything, we can do everything with intention.

I remember in Wat Tham Krabok my monk friend showed us this walking meditation. We would take every step so carefully, breaking it down into each of it’s components.

You raise the heel, then the whole foot. You move your leg forward, then you place the ball then the heel then you shift your weight.

Step by step, piece by piece becoming intimately aware of what is really happening when you are stepping.

You do it so often, we’ve done it so often so long that we forgot that’s a process that we had to learn.

I’d find myself talking around the temple grounds and I’d think “I’m walking so quickly, I’m not walking with presence.”

And I would start the meditation and it would take me 30 minutes to walk about 300 meters. I said to my monk friend “Its amazing that I can become so conscious of my steps once more.”

And he said “Yes, everything is like that. Everything can be remade with presence. Of course our great teacher Jesus told us “whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your heart.”

Now with beauty. Now with presence. Now with gravity.

Thank you for listening and have a wonderful day.