A One Minute (> or <) Meditation
As I experience my world in this moment, it seems that everyone is looking for answers, or perhaps on the flip side of that same coin, realizing that they don’t know what to do next. It is of little console to send them some Zen, by way of saying that there is nothing that we really know and that any decision that we do make takes us to the exact perfect place from which to take our next step. So you didn’t hear that from me!
Fact is, I understand that our decisions do seem to matter: What treatment should I try next? How do I salvage my marriage? What life style change could I envoke to lift this heavyness that sits in my core and weighs me down?
In this realm of suffering, we hold on to the belief that there must be “the right” answer somewhere out there and with sufficient mental efforting I will find it. So we follow our head or our heart to places of inspiration and stories of sages who have come down from the mountain to give us our own GPS. Hoping that we can walk in their footsteps and come that much closer to the life we imagine exists somewhere very different from the place we are standing.
Maybe we are reading one more dharma book waiting for the mystery to reveal herself — or perhaps smiling even as we are shaking our head at a quirky net-friend who sent us a link to Steve Martin’s 1979 film, The Jerk, where we finally learn the difference between Shit from Shinola and breathing a sigh of relief that finally our quest for answers is over and life will now be easy. (And for my children who will not know the circa WWII reference, Shinola was a popular shoe polish here in the states.)
Some of us seem more willing to not be smarter than a fifth grader. Perhaps it is because in my own meaningless memories Sgt Schults’ reverberation in the 1965 WWII farce Hogan’s Heroes I Know Nothing! that the knowing-less-ness feels for me a bit like home.
Adyashanti on The End of Your World tells us this:
“The one question — “What do I know for certain” — is tremendously powerful. When you look deeply into this question, it actually destroys your world. It destroys your whole sense of self, and it’s meant to. You come to see that everything you think you know about yourself, everything you think you know about the world, is based on assumptions, beliefs and opinions — things you believe because you were taught or told that they were true. Until we start to see these false perceptions for what they really are, consciousness will be imprisoned within the dream state.
In the same way, as soon as we allow ourselves to realize “My gosh, I know almost nothing: I don’t’ know who I am. I don’t know what the world is. I don’t know if this is true. I don’t know if that is true.” something within our being opens up. When we are willing to step into the unknown and its inherent insecurity, and not run back to anything for cover or for comfort — when we are wiling to stand as if facing an oncoming wind and not wince — we can finally face our actual self.” (p. 13-14)
Which is all fine and good unless the vortex of energy in our kundalini core rising screams BUT I MUST DO SOMETHING even as nothing we have done thus far has seemed to work. And while there are a half dozen people that I know who think I am writing this about their private story on a waxing gibbous moon, I honestly confess it is my own drama played out in the wallows of my mind that seeks if not the end, perhaps just to subdue the suffering ever so slightly.
Since clearly there is so little that I can do … may I offer a mī-nūt one minute (more or less) meditation:
As we each sit here in our own mental musing (or mud if it is yet again one of those days) I offer this breath that we may each take and share together. Placing my hand upon my chest I inhale deeply and ask that you allow me to hold the space for your pain inside my heart. Exhale softly and consider that you do not need to hold this all alone. Each of us are part of the atmosphere and the atoms that create the lila before our eyes. Play with me now, in the dust and the dreams that in one breath of the wind can change everything on our horizon. Namaste.
