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profane and ugly became so beautiful, so graceful.
It is said that his fame spread far and wide and people started coming to see him while he was cutting up animals. Even the emperor of Japan came to see him while he was cutting because he had heard that the way he cuts, nobody has ever cut -- such grace, such love, tears flowing from his eyes. And the miracle was that although human beings were not able to understand, perhaps the animals were able to understand.
Ordinarily when you want to kill an animal he tries to escape, but from this butcher no animal tried to escape. He hugged the animal. The animal was not bound by anything, tied with anything. He was completely free. It was as if deep down he wanted to die by this man's hand.
And the emperor asked one thing, about the knife that he used to kill the animals. The knife looked so shiny, as if it had just been sharpened. The emperor asked, "Do you sharpen your knife every day?"
He said, "No, this is the knife my father used, and his father used, and it has never been sharpened. But we know exactly the points where it has to cut the animal so there is a minimum of pain possible -- through the joints where two bones meet. The knife has to go through the joint, and those two bones that meet there go on sharpening the knife. And that is the point where the animal is going to feel the minimum pain.
"For three generations we have not sharpened the knife. A butcher sharpening a knife simply means he does not know his art" -- he used the word "art" -- "He does not know the art and he does not know how to do it lovingly."
My commune is in meditation twenty-four hours a day; whatever you are doing, or not doing, is immaterial. Just be loving, be alert, do it with joy. Whatever you are doing, do it as if this is the greatest thing in the world at this juncture of time. It may be just cutting the grass, watering the road; it may be anything. Washing the floor, do it as if the whole existence depends on what you are doing, it is indispensable; without it, the whole universe will collapse.
When you do anything with such intensity, with such love, with such respect, as if without
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