As I was doing the dishes just now, it dawned on me that a LOT of my time is taken up with associating with “things.” I move things, arrange things, clean things, use things to communicate, take pictures with things, create with things. I must confess that a lot of the time I am relating to “things” I am not really there for them. Often my mind is whirring with thought. I’ve been studying spiritual science for years, so I should know better. I know what to do! I know what I have to do to be fully alive in this body.

I don’t want to start beating myself up. That’s just more whirring mind. I can just use what I noticed as a starting point to change my relationship to things, bit by bit.

Many years ago I was fortunate to spend nine months at a school called Claymont. It was a Fourth Way School founded by John Bennett. The entire nine months was spent working with sensation in the body in order to be present in the moment. We– fifty-four of us– were engaged in practical physical tasks all day and were challenged to be present in the body while we worked. Just now as I was washing the pots I thought, “Yes, I know what to do. I have been trained.” So, I returned to watching my breath and being aware of the pot in my hands and the way my body moved as it engaged in the task assigned to it. This is simple freedom. It just dawned on me that without these things, without the tasks related to things, I would have no hope of– as Christ, Gurdjieff, and Bennett said– of “waking up.” As a human being, I have been assigned to relate to “things!”

Instead of viewing “things” as a burden, I can choose to be grateful for them. They are helping me to grow into a truly living being.