Ingestion

For most of us the body is the instrument with which we get things done. We spend time and energy doing things: energy is used to rearrange the world we inhabit. But the body is not just an instrument for use, it is also, and I suspect primarily, like the man says, a palace for the crownéd truth to dwell in. The body receives the world and the energy of the world, and then resonates with the world and truly reflects the world – a part of Nature – natural. So when I see that red hibiscus I can either register and label or I can receive it into my body; and I don't mean to receive the experience – another sensation to store in my memory, I mean to receive the actual essence of the flower – to open up and let it find the room in the palace of my body where it naturally wishes to reside and abide. Then in each of the multitude of rooms in this palace there trembles a different essence, and I do truly carry the world in me and with me. This attitude to living is all heart, and because of this and because I am taking the physical world into my physical body, the breathing is all important – as much as anything I breathe the world in and I smell the world – I smell that red as much as see it. Not surprisingly, the more civilized we have become – the more molded by convention and filled with business – the more vestigial the olfactory sense has become.