Tonight, walking south down Lexington Avenue, somewhere between 48th and 42nd Streets, I thought, “I’m alone.” It wasn’t a sad feeling. There was a realization that there in the midst of millions of people I was strolling unbothered, untouched, in my own little world, by myself in the middle of New York City. It struck me as amazing that millions of people could be so close to me yet unaware of my existence and me of them. And then there was this sense of floating in a sea of asphalt, steel, and humanity, untethered without an anchor, and I thought, “I am alive in this moment of time.” Then I thought, “I do this every day and every night when I’m on my way somewhere. It’s the going somewhere that keeps me from thinking about the here and now.” Like, the in between from where I was and where I’m going doesn’t matter; as though the journey has no significance except in its purpose to get me where I’m going.
I realized that most of my life I’m on my way somewhere and I never experience the in betweens, the journey. I drive the car to get to the store. I go to school to get a degree. I work to get a paycheck. I wash the dishes to have a clean sink. Life becomes doing this or that to reach a destination, only to find I have a new destination. So, I never live in any moment.
IN THE ZEN TRADITION, you may hear such wise-guy advice from Zen masters as: “Wash the dishes when you are washing the dishes.” In other words, stay put in the moment by paying full attention to exactly what is happening in the moments of our daily life.There is no other place to look for awareness or enlightenment, or whatever other multisyllabic word of the week we are using to label our spiritual aims. It’s eye-opening advice when you put it to use. Try it the next time you wash dishes, when your mind is everywhere but on the dishes—-and the feel of hot water on your hands and the smell of soap in your nostrils. - - http://www.hundredmountain.com/
Today, I will embrace the act. I will embrace the journey. I will observe the moment. I will wash the dishes to wash the dishes.
