...seems like it happens again and again with the meditation
thing...every time I think I’m getting somewhere...or, y’know getting nowhere since there’s nowhere you
need to go...opening things up, going DEEP,
it goes haywire...seems all I can do is fidget...can’t get past the minor
discomforts of the surface...as there’s some kind of hyper-vigilant
sub-conscious life-guard blowing his whistle, yelling “come back in, there’s
rocks out there, there’s sharks, go too deep and you could drown”...
...Jack Kornfield compares training the mind to training a
puppy, but the mind’s a lot harder to train, and makes much bigger messes...
...two or three yoga classes a day, in between lengthy
program sessions of intense meditation and discussion of compassion and mindfulness...sympathetic
joy and trauma...loneliness and equanimity...kale and tempeh...peace and
trauma...empathy and rage...
Show me that I’m everywhere
and get me home for tea...
George Harrison
...didn’t even know it was officially contemplative week at Kripalu...so not only are we generally
expected to be quiet within our group...with a suggestion to be totally silent
for the week...but the dining hall is silent for all meals, and hallways are
mostly filled with whispers...while I, of course, am committing what’s gotta be
pretty much the ultimate in apostasy for a meditation retreat...multi-tasking...here both for the
retreat and to reconnect with friends from the teacher training two years
ago...so, y’know, I couldn’t, like, not talk
to them....today, we were supposed to be practicing mindful eating at lunch, but I wanted to meet up with my friend for
the noon vigorous vinyasa class, which left me really hungry and with less than
fifteen minutes to eat...so I wolfed down a tray-full of stuff with great
abandon, just mindful enough to have some consciousness of the fuller
experience I was missing...
no light and no land anywhere,
cloud cover thick. I try to stay
just above the surface, yet I’m already under
and living within the ocean.
Rumi (Coleman Barks, trans.)
...Wednesday morning...not feeling my best...(though,
admittedly, it’s kinda like that bumper sticker about the worst day fishing vs.
the best day at work)...woken by the alarm...6:15...best not to remind myself I
don’t actually have to go to yoga
class...gentle yoga...not gentle
enough for the stiff, sleepy curmudgeon...then breakfast...pretty good, but
disappointing after the French toast yesterday...then on to the first
session...incessant sitting makes my knees hurt more every day...and I’m even
sleepier than I was in yoga class...and who the hell cares what Thomas Merton said?....then
walking meditation...I hate walking meditation and he’s telling us to go
outside where it’s snowing, and I didn’t even bring shoes...they’re back in the
room with my jacket and hat...at least it’s better than more sitting...go to
the room, then outside...walk mindfully, matching footsteps to the in-breath
and out-breath...across the grass and down the hill...to the spontaneous realization
that everything I see, everything that exists, is infinitely, unspeakably beautiful....notice
after a while that everybody else has gone back inside...guess I missed the
bell, again...make my way back up the hill...
...cloud hidden,
whereabouts unknown...
Van Morrison, Alan
Watts Blues
...Friday morning, now...major snow storm blowing in...no
way I’m driving home in that...guess I’m trapped at Kripalu ’til it’s
over...nothin’ to do but sign up for a weekend vinyasa workshop...stay ’til Sunday...as
misfortunes go, it’s not bad...
