Kiss The Earth With Your Feet
In today’s session we contemplate the quote, ‘All is a miracle, so smile, breathe and go slowly. Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.’ From Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monastic and peace activist. This track is taken from my course, ‘Daily Contemplations For Living An Examined Life’, available now via my profile.
Transcript
Hello and welcome to the session.
I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable.
You can close down the eyes if you wish and take a deep slow breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.
You just gently begin to open your mind to today's quote,
To contemplate the words with a free and open and subtle mind,
To welcome in possibility and expansion and growth and to allow yourself for the next few minutes to just sit and be with whatever arises.
In a moment I'm going to share with you a quote to contemplate and then we'll just let it percolate and then we'll talk about the quote and see where the discussion leads us.
Today's quote comes from Thich Nhat Hanh,
A Vietnamese monastic and peace activist and it goes,
All is a miracle,
So smile,
Breathe and go slowly.
Walk as if you were kissing the earth with your feet.
All is a miracle,
So smile,
Breathe and go slowly.
Walk as if you were kissing the earth with your feet.
So this quote asks us to consider that everything is a miracle.
The sheer fact of existence,
Consciousness and our unique point or place to witness it,
To be a part of it,
Life,
Is miraculous.
If we take the secular view,
Take away all the spirituality and just look at it statistically,
And just look at it statistically,
The chances of you and me being here is so infinitesimally small as to make it practically zero.
And that's just our lives,
Not the universe,
The solar system,
The galaxy,
The planets,
The earth,
The intricate systems and structures that we've created,
The complex human dynamics,
Language,
Science,
Technology,
Culture,
Art.
All of this is unexplicably improbable as to grant it the status of a miracle.
Indeed,
The only way that you can be here now is due to a chance occurrence of your parents meeting at a certain time,
A moment earlier or a moment later,
And you may not be you.
The technology that we're using to express and listen to this talk and every other talk on this platform,
The way that we can connect with one another,
The options that we have to work,
To transport,
To express ourselves,
To feed ourselves,
We just sort of take it for granted.
It's like that story of the two young fish swimming by the older fish and the older fish says to them,
So how's the water?
Or so how's the water going for you?
Or how are you finding the water?
And the young fish say to each other,
What's water?
I don't know.
Because it's so ubiquitous,
What we have is so global,
So total,
So expansive,
That we just take it as the mundane,
As the course of what it means for life to exist.
But really there's no reason to say why this should be the way it is,
Why everything should be the way everything is,
Why anything should be the way anything is.
Of course I'm using the word miracle to explain something infinitesimally improbable,
So you can pick up the issue with the meaning there,
But the fact of the matter is that for some reason stuff exists when there doesn't necessarily have to be anything.
Different religions,
Different spiritual practices will posit the causation derived from a holy being,
Springing existence into being,
Or suggest that time is circular and things have always been here and always will be,
Or that everything is in fact one and what we're experiencing is in fact divine consciousness expressing and experiencing itself simultaneously,
Where all suffering is born not of God or the universe but of our disconnect from that divine oneness.
All of that is quite esoteric,
And I like that the quote brings us back to the earth,
To grounding,
All is miracle,
So smile,
Breathe and go slowly.
Walk as if you were kissing the earth with your feet.
That's such a beautiful analogy,
Walk as if you are kissing the earth with your feet.
It's a blessing,
An intimacy,
A connection,
A joy.
It's poetry expressed,
It's poetry expressed.
One of the things I'm working on this year and into the future is going slower,
Smiling more,
Breathing more,
Taking my time with things,
Because what is the rush?
Where are we all going other than living in this perpetual now?
This moment is the only moment that exists,
So why not smile?
Why not breathe deeply?
Breathe deeply the essence and the beauty of the nature that surrounds us.
You know it's cliche but quite literally smell the roses.
Walk if you're kissing the earth with your feet.
This practice,
This going slowly,
This blessing the world with our presence,
With our walking,
This consideration of all as a miracle is quite a good reframe,
Particularly when things get dark,
And the author's experience of life is indeed quite dark and harrowing.
But through walking and returning back through the devastation wrought by human hands,
The author was able to reclaim and rebuild and indeed heal themselves and many others by the simple acceptance of the idea that all is miracle,
Of smiling despite suffering,
Of breathing despite fear,
And of going slowly despite the desire and the panic wanting you to rush.
Walk slowly,
Walk slowly as if you're kissing the earth with your feet,
No matter what you've experienced on that earth.
This quote also wants me to talk down a slight tangent,
Perhaps away from the meaning of the quote's initial intention,
But something that I think we could all benefit from.
Walk as if you were kissing the earth with your feet.
I've been leaning into walking barefoot,
To touching the ground with my skin,
Feeling the grass and the stones and the pavement,
Because there's that thing that happens that if we are always wearing shoes,
The world feels like rubber.
If you only walk being covered,
Being covered,
You're never actually connected to that which birthed you.
And I'm finding so much more connection to the world and to myself by simply touching it.
And this quote,
Kissing the earth with your feet,
I think will add an extra layer to that practice.
I will be walking barefoot,
I will be mindful as to what I feel,
But I'll also be metaphorically kissing the earth with my feet,
Blessing it and thanking it for birthing me,
For sustaining me,
For holding me,
For protecting me.
And I suppose,
Going back to the metaphysical for a second,
For in a sense,
Being me.
Because we are not distinct from the world.
It's not like the world is here and you're over there.
You are of this world.
The only difference is that you see the world through your eyes.
It's easy to feel this distinction between you and it.
You're over and it is over there.
But the simple antidote to that illusion is to look at other people.
Look at the countless other people that you see.
They are of the world.
They are the natural consequence of the earth,
Of the universe.
And if you can see that in them,
You'll be able to see that in yourself.
And perhaps you'll be able to sit with the concept that all is a miracle.
So smile,
Breathe and go slowly.
Walk as if you were kissing the earth with your feet.
So well done.
This brings us to the end of the session.
At the bottom of your screen,
You'll see the option to view the classroom or to ask a question.
Before moving on,
I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,
To read answers from other students and to hear my replies.
Remember to start your responses with,
Teach Nathan or to restate the quote,
Kissing the earth.
So we know which one you're referring to.
This is an opportunity for deep learning,
Further introspection and insight.
So please don't miss out.
I look forward to seeing you in the next session.
Thank you.
This track was taken from my course,
Daily contemplations for living an examined life.
It's out now on insight timer and available via my profile.
I invite you to join in.
This track was taken from my course,
Daily contemplations for living an examined life.
It's out now on insight timer and available via my profile.
I invite you to join in.
