Letting go…of meditating while cutting vegetable…sigh…

So much for yesterday’s post. Meditation whilst cutting vegetables went kaput! It was a complete bust.

Inspired by the idea of doing mundane chores in a meditative manner, I started to get dinner ready last night. My daughter sat at the counter eating her snack and I brought out the veggies to chop.

I decided to share contents of yesterday’s blog with my eight-year-old. Of course, the goal was lofty. I was going to demonstrate turning the vegetable chopping business into a calming meditative experience.

I told her of the commune story and how folks there were “meditating” through their vegetable-cutting activity. Her eyes squinted, then turned wide and then she burst out laughing (sigh… the wrong gene returns once more). This is even before I told her how my friend and I had laughed till our sides hurt.

 “Vegetable meditation”, she guffawed. “Maybe it would go like this:
OM… chop chop chop… OM… chop chop chop,” all in a chanting monotone with eyes closed and hands in a meditative pose. Evidently, it had captured her imagination and her funny bone. Laughing (in snorts by now) and barely able to speak, “Carrots…chop chop, OM…chop chop, OM OM….give me all these things – that I don’t really need… OM (I swear she said that!! I don’t know if it was part of a profound thought or just random speaking – more likely the later…).
By now her eyes were closed and hands and feet in the lotus pose, she continued through her giggles, “Carrot meditate with me…OM…chop chop chop.”
By now I was in splits too. So much for a calming meditative activity – we were both hysterical as she continued to come up with new “meditation techniques” for vegetable chopping.

Finally the laughter stopped. I resignedly put the knife down and gave up any effort of meditating while chopping vegetables.

Complete failure. Complete fun.