Thich Nhat Hanh - Sunday, April 28, 2024

Thich Nhat Hanh

"Our cosmic body encompasses the entire phenomenal world. The wonder that is our human body will disintegrate one day, but we are much more than this human body. We are also the cosmos, which is the foundation of our body. Without the cosmos, the body could not be here. With the insight of interbeing we can see that there are clouds inside us. There are mountains and rivers, fields and trees. There is sunshine. We are children of light. We are sons and daughters of the sun and stars. The whole cosmos is coming together to support our body in this very moment. Our little human body contains the entire realm of all phenomena.We can visualize our human body as a wave, and our cosmic body as all the other waves on the ocean. We can see ourselves in all the other waves and all the other waves in us. We don't need to go looking for our cosmic body outside us. It is right here within us at this very moment. We are made of stardust. We are children of the Earth, made of all the same elements and minerals. We contain mountains, rivers, stars, and black holes. In every moment of our life the cosmos is going through us, renewing us, and we are returning ourselves to the cosmos. We are breathing the atmosphere, eating the earth's food, creating new ideas, and experiencing new feelings. And we are emitting energy back into the cosmos, in our thinking, speech, and actions, in our out-breath, in our body's warmth, and in releasing everything we have consumed and digested. In this very moment many parts of us are returning to the earth. We don't return to the earth and cosmos only when our body disintegrates. We are already inside the earth, and the earth is inside us.Our human body is a masterpiece of the cosmos, and when we treasure, respect, and cherish our body, we are treasuring, respecting, and cherishing our cosmic body. When we live in such a way that we take good care of our body, we are taking care of our ancestors and we are taking care of our cosmic body."-Thich Nhat Hanh (The Art of Living)