THE PRACTICE OF THE EUCHARIST

The practice of the Eucharist is the practice of awareness!

When Jesus broke the bread and shared it with his disciples, he said, "Eat this. This is my flesh." He knew that if his disciples would eat one piece of bread in mindfulness,

they would have real life. In their daily lives, they may have eaten their bread in forgetfulness, so the bread was not bread at all; it was a ghost. In our daily lives, we may see the people around us, but if we lack mindfulness,

they are just phantoms, not real people, and we ourselves are ghosts.

Practising mindfulness enables us to become a real person. When we are a real person, we see real people around us, and life is present in all its richness. The practice of eating bread, a tangerine, or a cookie, is all the same. When we breathe we are mindful. When we look deeply at our food, life becomes real at that very moment. To me the rite of the Eucharist is a wonderful practice of mindfulness. In a drastic way Jesus tried to wake up his disciples. Thich Nhat Hanh, 'Peace is Every Step'