At breakfast, the senior monk sat quietly, reading while eating. Two disciples watched, puzzled.
“You told us to only do one thing at a time,” one said. “And here you are—you’re reading and eating!”
The senior monk looked up calmly. “No,” he said. “I am eating when I am eating. I am reading when I am reading. When I read while I eat, I am reading and eating. It’s not two things at once. It is a whole different experience.”
One disciple frowned. “But isn’t that like doing two things at once?”
The monk smiled. “Imagine a cheeseburger. It’s not just a hamburger with cheese on top. It is a whole new thing. Peanut butter and jelly—if you eat them separately, it’s one thing. Together, it’s another. Reading and eating—done with full attention—is like that. A complete, single experience.”
Later, in my own kitchen, I banged my hand on the counter. One hand was stirring. The other hand was reaching for a jar. I was trying to do two different things at once. I wasn’t really stirring, fully aware of what I was doing. I wasn’t really reaching, fully sensing where my hand would land. There was no integration, no combined experience. I was half-present in both actions. And so my hand met the counter.
It wasn’t rushing that caused it—it was the gap, the hovering in between, the attempt to start one thing before finishing the other. I wasn’t fully inhabiting either action, and that’s why the collision happened.
Maybe that’s the moment to notice: are you fully in what you are doing, or hovering between?
Spiritual Gravity 