I was visiting my mother recently in the house where I was raised and where the family has lived since 1958.  While I was browsing the web on the laptop she keeps in the kitchen, she saw the Samadhi Cushions website and asked me what it was.   Then she told me there was an old meditation cushion in an upstairs closet.  Turned out to be a zafu that she gave me for Christmas back in 1982 or so.

My name is written on a label that was added to the carrying strap, so I must have needed it at a group meditation retreat.   Maybe this was the Shambhala Buddhist Seminary which was held in Bedford Springs, Pennsylvania, 1982 to 1984,  in an old ocean liner of a hotel built before the Civil War when the area served as a summer retreat for President Buchanan.

On the underside of the carrying strap is a Samadhi Cushions label featuring Karmê Chöling’s name and phone number — which indicates the venerableness of the cushion, since the the cushion workshop hasn’t been at Karmê Chöling since 1996, when it moved to its current location in the village of Barnet and acquired its own phone number and street address.

I have it from Sumner (the Manager at Samadhi Store) that the retail store followed the workshop to Barnet village about a year later, when Karmê Chöling’s old barn (Samadhi Cushion’s former home) was moved and transformed into the Pavilion practice space at Karmê Chöling — no one is exactly sure how this happened, but the Pavilion is nothing like the barn. It is a wonderful place to practice (or dance or drum or conference).

Anyway, my old cushion looked pretty lonely up in that closet, with its only company some tacky kids’ encyclopedias and an old US flag.  So, I brought it back to Vermont and put in my meditation room where it’s been getting along famously with my zabuton and gomden. Be nice if I could wash it — too bad it doesn’t have a removable cover.

Although it has flattened somewhat over the years, my zafu still provides a nice height when combined with a support cushion. If you’ve got an old zafu, chances are it has a little more life in it, a little more to give. Don’t let it languish. Rescue it.

The Pavilion at Karmê Chöling.

Couple of years ago one of the folks working at Samadhi Cushions found one of our zafus at a yard sale on the other side of the state and bought it just for fun.    We have it from our president Jeanine Greenleaf that it dates back to the company’s first or second year, ca 1976-77.

Most of the time it stays up on a shelf in the shipping department, but once in a while we let it hang out with its old pal Pencil Sharpener and watch the rain fall on Stevens River, which flows by Samadhi Cushions about a half-mile below Karme Choling.

Friday PM: New Yorker Magazine. Spent 1½ hours learning about the drug trade. Addiction is so terrible, a destructive thing pretending to be good for us. I have compassion for those people, I really do. New restaurant in mid-town. Read too late, no time to sit.

Saturday Morning: Sensitive to signs from the world, read the signs today. The signs said “not a meditation day today.”  New sign at Anthony’s Diner, Ham and Eggs–$5.99.

Sunday: Sitting Meditation is something I should do, like eat less carbs. Where is the time? Maybe I should look at my schedule. Everyone should be as open about the things they should do.

Later on Sunday: Some people need meditation. I say let them meditate. They’re better for it, so who’s to argue? Keeps them off the street. Will call B. after his retreat. Treat him to lunch.

Thursday: Had a thought today: I’m not the same person when I’m hungry. This really stuck with me. Feels good to have a thought that really sticks around. I mean this is a realization. Finally. Doubt my practice can handle this new focus.

Saturday: first the garbage. Then called the plumber (toilet stopped up, embarrassing).  Ordered a new cookbook from Amazon (sorry Samadhi Store). Should really do some dishes. Noon already! Starved. Huevos Rancheros.

Saturday Afternoon: Pissed off. No one offers what is needed. No one knows how to nurture. Everyone withholds. Too upsetting. It’s all I can do not to throw this old cookbook out the window. Sitting? You’d have to tie me down.

Sunday: Moody again. Way too moody. Low blood sugar or something my wife said. Or something she didn’t say, I can’t remember. Where is the support? Lost my appetite. Can’t sit on an empty stomach.

Monday: Must prioritize. Work comes first. Money is a necessity, meditation a luxury. Need to put food on the table. Into simplicity. Not into sitting around on cushions, a luxury.

Tuesday: Up early. Got too simple, no milk for tea. A bad sign. Painful. Can’t sit when I’m like this.

Saturday: Ducked out the door as  my teacher passed through the hallway at Karmê Chöling today. What a relief! Not ready to account for my sitting practice. Not really looking my best either. Missed the tea snack.

Sunday Paper. World going to hell in a hand basket.  “All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie.” (B. Dylan) Not going to live a lie—pretending to be someone I’m not: a western knock off of an eastern tradition—a taco sushi. No appetite for practice.

Sunday Morning: Need to blog. Need to think of others. Been too focused on me lately. Have I grown in my practice? Speaking of growth, checked myself on the scale: news not good.

Sunday PM: Meditation is like following a recipe. Without the right ingredients, it just won’t work. For instance, you have to like yourself. How can you like yourself if you don’t? Today I don’t like myself.

Monday: Up Early Again. Beautiful morning. Humidity gone. Sunshine. Good mood. Just said “No” to meditation. Felt good. Liberating. I’m OK. Is there something I lack? Maybe. Ham and Eggs anyone?

Editor’s Note: Thoughts are like food. Meditation is the discipline of diet, where you can learn to let go of the habit to have and to hold (and to chew and swallow.) Your meditation cushion should be comfortable, but sitting meditation won’t always be eggs over easy. It takes guts, but not the kind that Michael’s apparently working on. Maybe he should check out our selection of  vegetarian cookbooks.

2. Tell the Truth.  In sitting meditation you face facts (other things too).  Scheming doesn’t help; you’re only fooling yourself.  Choose your words, but say how you feel.  Don’t defend your point of view, just express it.

3. Sweat the Details.  Meditation is paying attention.  Life is only moment by moment.  Breath by breath. If you are sensitive to the details of life, they become sensitive to you.  Tidy up.  Dress nicely.  Speak well.  Keep your dignity. When you are here, you find what you need.

4. Give (Intelligently). If there’s a knock at the door, open it. Given enough? More could be needed.  Offer what you have, not what you don’t.  When you give, life gets easier.  Life is giving. Meditation moves with the flow of life.  Sooner or later, this body of yours will be somebody’s breakfast.  Don’t expect anything.

5. Prioritize.  You do already, just do it consciously.  Look back.  Look ahead.  How have you spent the last five years, the last five minutes?  How do you want to spend the next five (if you have them)? Time is ticking, acknowledge it.  Understand time.  Hint: meditation happens now.

6. Simplify.  Say “no” to the next bright idea, the next invitation.  In sitting meditation, we let thoughts come, then we let them go.  If you’re not the President, why do you need his schedule?  Make time for rest, for work and relationships, but learn to say “no thank you.”  An open morning or weekend isn’t a failure, it’s an accomplishment.

7. Find Company.  Meditation is making friends with yourself.  It matters who you hang with.  A date with Tony Soprano could be interesting, but it might not end well.  Choose the examples in your life.  Emulate who you admire.  Study the words of wise people.  We all have grudges, but they make poor friends.  Don’t let them drive the bus.

8. Suffer (a bit). Life hurts and is a mess.  You can change it, but you can’t fix it.  Don’t be afraid to feel your own heart.  Don’t be afraid to lose.  Recognize pride.  Don’t be a stranger to yourself.  You will be hurt; it’s not a punishment.  It means you’re human.  Meditation doesn’t fix suffering, it explores it.

9. Get Physical.  You need a body to practice meditation.  Have a physical discipline that gets you outdoors.  Breathe, see, hear, touch, taste, and smell.  Garden, run, do Tai Chi.  Sweat.  Relax and enjoy your world.  Don’t push your body like a mule.  Eat well, enjoy your bath and your bed.

10. Make Room.  Create a time and a place for meditation.  Leave your meditation cushion (or bench or chair) where you can see them.  Let them talk to you.  Your home is your castle: arrange your kingdom.  Be your own monarch.

Editor’s Note: And then do it. As Michael’s list suggests, meditation isn’t the “icing on the cake”.  Meditation is the cake. It’s at the center of a culture that supports a meaningful life.  Since we all have a mind, meditation is also what we do anyway. (If you wonder where your mind is, it’s where you last left it.)

If you need meditation instruction, get it. If you need a meditation cushion, find it.  Don’t wait for everything to be “right” before you sit down to practice, it never will be.

I never really wanted a house. It was my wife’s idea.

My ideal scenario was to live in a van. There are many advantages to a van. Maybe it’s a guy thing.

For one, who ever heard of painting a van? I mean the inside. This just wouldn’t come up. There is something beautiful about steel, whatever color it’s painted.

Second, keeping the van clean would be easy. Cleaning my house is like cleaning the Potala Palace in Lhasa. There are more rooms than I care to count. Once I vacuumed the whole house. It was summertime. I had to be treated for heat exhaustion. I won’t do that again.

Actually, I don’t really think you can keep a van all that clean. The effort would be in conflict with the van’s nature. It is important to respect the nature of things. Anyhow, cleaning wouldn’t really come up. That would be fine by me. I mean, cleaning something changes it. Have you noticed? Why do we want to change things? Isn’t our practice to accept things the way they are?

Householders have the “house” and the “holders”. The “house” is a shelter from the elements. But having survived, you still need to survive your survival, if you know what I mean. Escape is the only way. At night in a house, I feel alone and vulnerable. I have the cable bills to prove it. But come on, the way to escape is to move. Just one word here: wheels.

As for “holders,” in my tradition we are learning to let go. Not to hold on. If you have a house, you are in charge of your house. Let’s face it; whatever happens in the house, you are responsible. Do you know what that word means, really? If you did, you wouldn’t want to be it. It’s related to the word oblige, which is related to the word bound. Basically, a house is a prison — with windows and a chimney.

Responsible people have to account for their actions. You can’t “account” while you’re moving. Particularly if you’re moving fast. You do what you do and you move on. People aren’t responsible when they’re moving. How could they be? My van is about freedom. You can’t drive if you’re studying the rear view mirror. People miss the point sometimes. We get lost. We don’t always do as we should. But how can you be lost when you’re not there? Two words: floor it.

Houses wear out. They are constant work. Something is always breaking down, requiring attention. That kind of commitment to a “thing” isn’t in keeping with the meditative lifestyle. We need to let go of things. For instance, I let go of my old tube TV. It was huge and it meant a lot to me. But it had to be done. Now I have a beautiful flat screen TV. It’s just not the same.

When a house wears out, it is very hard to trade it in. With my van, I would just drive it to the dealer and drive out with another. I actually think a van is “greener” than a house. So don’t fault me for trading it in. Not to mention the boost to Detroit, which could use a little boost.

Houses have windows. I wouldn’t have any windows on my van. At least not in back. Talk about privacy. Bedding down for the night, even I wouldn’t know where I was. Vans are romantic; they’re cozy, if you get my drift. I think that “desirability factor” is one of the reasons my wife was against it.

Windows allow light in the morning. That can be inconvenient. In a van, this wouldn’t be a problem. Speaking of windows, from my house you can see houses next door. Neighbors. The word says it all. Sometimes they phone me. Like when I’m yelling. I know it’s them from the caller ID. I don’t answer. But I do lower my voice.

Do you know how hard it is to yell when you have to keep your voice lowered? Believe me, there is almost no satisfaction there. You have to hiss, really, to make your point. Which is demeaning.

In my van, I wouldn’t have neighbors. Not permanent ones anyway. Just for the half hour or so it took them to shop for groceries. Living at the grocery store. Well, I mean, in the parking lot. Talk about convenience! And no neighbors. The problem with neighbors – sooner or later they need something. Neighbors are basically guests who haven’t moved in yet. No guests, no neighbors. That’s called simplicity. It’s part of my practice.

One thing about a van, there isn’t room for artwork and potted plants. They’re not practical. Nothing can hang on the walls of a van. I don’t even think they’re called walls. They’re called sides. Who ever heard of hanging a picture on a “side”? It just isn’t going to happen. This would save a lot of time.

It would take too long to hang a picture on the inside of my van. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about appreciation. Do you realize how much time in a house is wasted on appreciating things? Art on the wall, the smell of food on the stove, flowering plants. With my wife, every day is plant appreciation day.

I mean, how long can you stare at a plant? By the way, one thing I’ve noticed, if you stare long enough, the plant starts to stare back. Just try it. That’s the flaw in appreciation. You think those things are there for you. But if you really pay attention, it starts to feel like you are there for them. I mean, who wants to be there for a plant? Just creeps me out.

The other thing about a van: no furniture. Either you are driving, going where you need to go, or you are sleeping. I would have a really nice mattress in the back. I mean, I’m a gentleman. Why do we need anything else really? No tables, no chairs. Let’s face it. A chair is really just a poor excuse for a couch, and a couch wants to be a bed when it grows up.

Have you sat in a chair lately? Basically, you have two painful choices. You can lean back in the chair, which is like lying down halfway. How helpful is that? Or you can sit up straight and face the universe on your own. Who in their right mind would do that? Chairs with wheels, now those I can deal with. A van is a chair with wheels and a gas pedal. I miss my van.

Where was I? Oh yeah, the chair. Well, you can sit up and be still. There is a little problem with being still. I think you know what I’m driving at. The problem with being still? You are not moving. I don’t need to tell you what kind of people don’t move. These aren’t my favorite kind of people. Why would I want to imitate them?

Believe me, you will never distinguish yourself by sitting still. You’ll never get anywhere. In my van, I go places. I make “miles per hour.” I cover territory. My progress can be measured. No movement, no way to measure. If something can’t be measured, it’s either too big or too small. Either way, where’s the point? If you’re not progressing, where are you? You do the math.

Not that I would have to be on the go all the time. When I would drive, I would drive. When I would sleep, I would sleep. It would be Zen.

Editor’s Note: It’s important to have a spot in your living space where you are still and quiet. It is the basis for a sane household, which is your responsibility. Sitting still in meditation on your meditation cushion or bench connects you with space. Space connects you with everything and everyone. Recently, a scientist in the Times pointed out that space isn’t really far away. Just a one-hour drive, if your van can drive straight up. I think Michael might have missed the turn.

The Zen Novice finished his first meal at the monastery. Anxious to begin his journey to enlightenment he asked his Master “Now What?” The Master replied, “Now wash your bowl.”

—-Zen Parable

Michael, Can We Talk?

Michael, my dear, we have to talk. No, I didn’t say “Tawk” I said “Talk.” Seriously, have you noticed something? It’s getting crowded around here. It’s like you’re running out of room. It almost feels cramped. Why is that? I think you know.

The last time you sat down to practice mindfulness meditation, before you settled onto  your meditation cushion, you left kind of a mess. Your practice space was dusty and cluttered with books and papers. Your shoes were left higgly-piggly by the door. There was a half-finished cup of tea and a half-finished water glass on the kitchen counter. They had been there for some time.  Your coat was thrown on the couch, an old newspaper, half-read, on the table.

Never mind that these things are destined to confront your wife, who as we know prefers it tidy. I got the impression that you were in a hurry to meditate. I thought meditation was about slowing down, being where you are. How can you be in a hurry to be where you are, I ask?

Oneness

I know, in your tradition, there is talk of “emptiness” and even “oneness.” In your rush, maybe you understood this to suggest an experience that transcends the mundane. But doesn’t oneness mean that you and your world are connected? Speaking practically, what is there to be “one” with? If it’s your experience as it is, moment-to-moment, that experience has to include your stuff, which as I said, is everywhere.

When people think of a meditator, they think of precision, simplicity, and tidiness. This could be a kind of affectation. Don’t worry; you’re not suffering from it! But seriously, we’re not talking about fake, self-conscious solemnity as you sip your tea and wash your cup.

Mind and Matter

Paying attention to the environment around you reflects a meditator’s understanding. If mind and matter are connected somehow, and changing mind can change how we experience matter, changing matter should also have an impact on mind. Isn’t that the point of art? Why not art in everyday life?

OK, maybe your Mom hesitated to tell you to clean your room. Maybe she didn’t want to upset you. But if you are going to pretend to study the nature of reality, how things are, then you might as well begin by relating to reality, at least the one in front of you.

Considering Others

If you leave your stuff around, sooner or later, someone is going to have to pick up after you. The problem with leaving a mess is that it considers others, but in a funny way. I don’t know how to break it to you, but cleaning up after you may not be the world’s most noble profession. I ask you, can washing your teacup be the best use of someone’s time?

What’s that, you “don’t need a lecture right now”? You’re “already struggling to love yourself.” “Why the negative tone”, you ask? Michael dear, have you seen the detritus you’ve left in your wake? Everywhere you go, there is a little piece of you left behind — a coffee cup, a tissue, a blanket, a half-read piece of mail, you and I both know this is just the beginning of the list.

Expanding Your Universe

Leaving your stuff everywhere is like hanging a “this is my space” sign everywhere. It is the expanding universe theory, except that YOU are the universe. You are expanding. The result is smaller and smaller spaces for other people to fit themselves into. It is the phenomenon of overpopulation of one.

But you say, “look at my responsibilities, there isn’t time for every tea cup. If I go there, I’ll never look up, I’ll never have time to do the important things I need to do!” Which urgent project is this? What’s that? “Helping others–for example”?

Making Space

Now let me get this straight, you are saving the world and the first step on that journey is to leave something for someone else to clean up. OK, it’s possible, very possible that leaving a mess is the beginning of a very meaningful and successful effort to help others. It is also, however, suggestive of a different kind of journey. One that has you at the center, and others on the edge — with a trash can in their hand.

Of course, there is a whole other way to include people in your world. You could welcome them into a space that allows them to relax. A place that gives them room to relax. If space is a commodity (since you treat it that way), why not offer it? Why not make room? If you give them room, maybe others can learn to help themselves. That would be one less person who needs your help. Maybe they in turn can help others, even you. Wouldn’t that be in the interest of your expanding universe?

A Souvenir of Mind

The other thing about the half finished cup of tea you left on the counter for three days – I know it meant something to you. Why else would you leave it there?

I’ll tell you what it meant. It was a heart-warming reminder of you. It isn’t really a cup of tea. It’s a souvenir of your mind. In fact, it’s a thought. A big thought, a little one, a half-finished one. You and your thought got attached or it scared you. That’s why it’s still there. You don’t really want to say goodbye to your thought. If you do, you’d be lonely. You want a long goodbye, a three-day goodbye.

Finding Yourself

Thoughts keep you company. They remind you you’re here. If there weren’t thoughts for a minute, how would you locate yourself?  You’d be lost. That would be space. In space no one can hear you scream, they say. In this case, the teacup will hear you. Your 3-day old teacup is a little shrine. In your quiet way, you worship it.

In fact, the stuff you leave around helps you find yourself. When someone calls you and asks, “Where are you?” you can just say, “Oh, I’m about a foot from the laundry pile.” There, question answered. No need to account for yourself further.

Thoughts of course, come and go. They may return, but they are always interrupted, and there are gaps between them. Are you afraid of that space between thoughts? Maybe that’s why you are always rushing, leaving half-finished stuff everywhere as landmarks.

Letting Go

I have news for you. There is no way to go back. There is no way to return to the tea you enjoyed three days ago. No way to have exactly the thought you thought you had. It is all gone. Like writing on water as they say. Wouldn’t it be more elegant if the water were clean?

Michael, it would be good to finish one thing properly. Even a cup of tea. It’s modest, but it would bode well for the people you’re supposed to look after. Sometimes cleaning up gets a bad rap. It’s OCD; it’s what maids do; it involves touching unclean things; it’s holding on to formality. Those are all excuses. Cleaning up is doing one thing at a time. It takes courage. Cleaning up is letting go.

Now What?

“OK,” you say, “I’ve cleaned up a bit. It looks nicer. It feels a bit better. To be honest though, kind of liked it the old way. It was more relaxed. This feels a bit oppressive, sort of puritan or something. And anyway, now what?”

“Now what?” did you say? This is a very good question. Why don’t you just relax with this question? Making the space tidy allows for this question. When the space is a mess, there is no room for “Now”. It is as if Now were looking for somewhere to land and couldn’t find it. The space was too crowded.

This “Now” is your “Now.” When you left stuff everywhere you crowded out others, but you also crowded out your “Now”. You thought you were expanding, relaxing, but really, there was no more room for your experience. It was getting squeezed out. To be “one with everything” there has to be space. There has to be Now. Now that you’ve tidied up a bit, there is room. “Room for what?” You ask? Room for everything.

Editor’s Note: Dear Reader, don’t be alarmed. Anyone who knows Mr. Greenleaf well knows that he talks to himself. Sometimes I overhear voices coming from his office here at Samadhi Cushions and peek in (yes, it’s a little cluttered in there) just to see who he’s with. More often then not, he’s alone. It used to make me sad, now I’m used to it. Remember, there is a way for your meditation cushions not to be a living record of every substance they’ve ever encountered. The Deluxe Zafu and Deluxe Zabuton come with washable cushion covers.

Yes…also, sometimes Mr. Greenleaf writes his own “editor’s note” — Ed.

There Once Was a Man...

OK, so perhaps this isn’t the finest moment in my career as a booster of meditation. I just happen to have a soft spot for limericks. And as anyone who knows something about limericks  will attest, one limerick deserves, nay demands, another.

Dear Reader, the snow is about to fall in Vermont. Potentially stressful holidays loom. The economy is poised on the brink of something, but it’s hard to tell what. In these moments the mind turns to meditation. Ah well, yes very important. This time however, the mind turned to limericks.

Please Post

My request is simple: compose a (traditionally) five-line limerick using the word “zafu.” The word “zafu” can appear at the end of a rhyming line or in the body of the limerick. Comment on this blog post with your limerick and anything else you would like to share. If your limerick is “family friendly”, we will print it here. Traditionally limericks are opportunities to uncork profanity in unexpected ways. We respect this tradition but can only follow it up to a point. Apologies in advance; if you send us a really dirty limerick, the chances of publication are well…severely diminished.

The Word

In case you have stumbled upon this challenge based upon your love of limericks rather than your pursuit of the noble path of meditation, we might explain. “Zafu” is a Japanese word for a round pleated cushion used originally in the Zen tradition for the practice of Zazen or meditation. The practitioner sits on the cushion, traditionally with legs crossed in the lotus position on a Zabuton Mat.

Some of you might have endeavored the lotus posture in an earlier, more limber, era. Unless you are an adept, I suggest you refrain from trying it now (unless under supervision.) Speaking of limber, part of the challenge with using “Zafu” at the end of the limerick line is that limericks typically rely on anapestic phrasing. That is, a set of words or a word comprised of three syllables with the accent on the last syllable – like seventeen or well, yes, Nantucket. Attempting to use the two equally accented syllables of “Za-Fu” at the end of a line  raises challenges to this convention.

Out of Time

This is a blog about meditation. If would be great if your limerick somehow addressed the subject, but we won’t insist. While nonsense has its place, limericks reach their apogee when word play and word meaning support each other. According to Dictionary.com, the term limerick comes from a party game played (in Ireland or England) at the end of the 19th century. Participants would extemporize verse and their efforts would be followed by the chorus “Won’t you come up to Limerick”  – a town in the west of Ireland.

To extemporize means to recite spontaneously. How does one do this? The word’s roots here give a clue. Literally “ex-tempore” — is latin for outside of time. This time beyond time is the moment in which insights are born and also traditionally when true meditation is achieved. It may also be the only time when things happen. Speaking of out of time, when, you may ask, is there the time to compose this limerick? Commuting time, waiting in line, and while seeming to listen to someone complain are all great opportunities to turn your mind to the 5-lined monster.

A couple of limericks:

The Sound of One Cheek Sneaking

In Zazen, stuffed firm and sewn round,

A Zafu keeps your cheeks off the ground,

Not to be crass,

But if more than time you must pass,

Dense stuffing means no sound will be found.

(And a more solemn effort:)

The View of Meditation

From his black cotton buckwheat Zafu,

The Zen Master taught on the View,

He said, “Not as real as it seems,

Life’s like a Dream.

Zazen is no-thing to do.”

Editor’s Note: We have as yet no examples of the poetic tradition Mr. Greenleaf favors in our book inventory.  However, for other examples of poetic expressions of the spontaneous nature of insight see First Thought Best Thought by Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche,  Haiku Mind by Patricia Donegan, The Spring of My Life by Issa, or Narrow Road to the Interior by Basho.  Patricia Donegan’s instructional book Haiku is aimed at young writers but is eminently useful to all who wish to try their hand at that form.

Being Cool

Recently the New York Times published an op-ed piece on a conference for Social and Affective Neuroscientists (or “Neuros”) which took place in New York this past week. According to David Brooks, the writer, “the leading figures at this conference were in their 30’s, and most of the work was done by people in their 20’s.” And all of them, he pointed out, were “young, hip and attractive.”

Mr. Brooks went on to write, “many of the studies presented here concerned the way we divide people by in-group and out-group categories in as little as 170 milliseconds.” At the same time, another study “showed that if you give people a strategy, such as reminding them to be racially fair,” for example, “it is possible to counteract those perceptions.” As the article points out, to live with a view or idea is not an option, it’s what’s happening. And it’s happening very fast.

The In-Group

As a newly-minted teenager, I ran with the cool kids. I knew who “we” were and who wasn’t “us.”  I knew who was “in” and who was “out.”  I assumed great things from “our” crowd and nothing from the “uncool” whom I ignored (or worse).  In its rigid application of exclusion, and its focus on territory (school was assumed to be “ours”), being cool was a kind of warfare.  Cool was to be joined; uncool, suppressed. To maintain my outlook and compelling view of the world, I had plenty of evidence – subjective and objective. One year later, a move and a new school would prove me (at least the cool me) irrelevant.

School Spirit?

For the first year of high school, my parents’ divorce meant my brother and I moved from Massachusetts to Texas.  Uptight by southern standards of sociability, insecure in the face of so much change (how did high school football, of all things, get so important?), in high school I found myself instantly on the outside of whatever was cool.  I couldn’t even tell who the cool kids were supposed to be.  “You really don’t have school spirit, do you?” a pretty brunette pronounced after understanding that I wouldn’t be attending the pep rally before the football game (not to speak of the game).  I had to admit that whatever school spirit was, I didn’t have it.

Who’s Cool Now?

A few years later, in the middle of my senior year, I visited my old school back east. The band of cool kids was gone.  One kicked out, one transferred, the others relaxed into non-distinction.  Two of the most uncool kids from middle school days were on their way to Harvard. Their futures were promising, those of the former cool gang, unclear.

In the language of meditation, my “view” was changing.  According to the tradition of meditation practice, your view (basically what you think and how you understand life) will determine where meditation practice takes you. From one angle, meditation practice is simply about embodying an understanding of life – deepening our ability to be the person our meditative insight has revealed to us to be.

Who’s That in the Mirror?

Because sitting meditation slows us down and allows mind’s natural intelligence to develop, meditation is often called a mirror.  One of the first things we notice when we take up meditation is our view – the thoughts and underlying emotions that create and color our world.  Learning simply how to be, in a genuine way, reveals the glossed fiction of our self-image.  Gradually it dawns on us that whoever we really are, we are definitely not who we thought we were.  At the same time, our convenient and habitual approach to others is exposed.  In the space of meditative awareness, we notice tiny little flickering thoughts, continually evaluating others.

Though the process is more sophisticated than in high school, we are continually sizing people up.  Are they worthy of us, or do they somehow occupy another status, one we cannot reach?  To our astonishment (and some horror), we begin to recognize the birth of instinctive and instant likes and dislikes – based on the thinnest of fleeting perceptions.  Looking closely, we wonder, are these prejudices borne fresh from the encounter with others or do they govern encounters from the beginning (or before)?

Not Exactly…

Faced with this raging specter of snap judgments and hidden discursiveness, we begin to question our view.  For one thing, it becomes clear that the way we think migrates into how we are in the world, what we do.  If world we inhabit is different than the one we tell ourselves we are living, what are we living? To paraphrase the great 19th Century Tibetan Scholar-Practitioner Mipham, we realize that “Whatever we think it is – it’s not exactly like that.”

Meditative traditions emphasize training in the view – that is, studying how reality is – because that is what we do anyway, at least our own version of it.  In this case, study as support for meditation is not so much learning a new dogma or answer for the meaning of life, but shining a light on the views we do hold  (cherish even) without knowing we have them.

The School of Life

The culture of meditation is based on the notion that we can continue to grow up.  That the mind and the way it thinks and feels can develop.  Most of us have moved on from the views we developed in high school.  For me, these views were dispersed by another emerging reality.  I didn’t need to be talked out of a view of myself among the cool ones; when its irrelevance was exposed, this idea vanished like fog in sunlight.

As I get older, I find it harder to expose habitual thinking for what it is. Truths somehow get more penetrating, but I’ve gotten better at hiding from them.  It takes work to expose the self-limiting thoughts that put me and others “in” or “out.” As per the Neuros, it takes a “strategy”.  To grow these days, I often have to admit adolescence all over again. This includes the challenge of being willing to question, in a fresh way, who and how I am in the world.

How Cool is Peace?

In my experience, the discipline of regular meditation practice  (and attending meditation retreats)  is a strategy that works.  With the intention and courage to face ourselves, we give flickering thoughts room.  When these thoughts gang up on us, we neither join them nor suppress them.  Done properly, meditation is the experience of sharing the same boat with everyone.   In the space of meditation, thoughts of who’s in or out no longer make sense.  To paraphrase Suzuki Roshi, when you sit on your Zafu, everyone sits with you.  To practice mindfulness is to practice community, inclusion.  Because our practice moves us beyond limiting ideas about ourselves and others, it is the practice of peace.  How cool is that?

Editor’s Note: Karme Choling, just down the road from Samadhi Cushions, offers a week-long Simplicity retreat for those interested in exploring group meditation. Gaylon Ferguson’s Natural Wakefulness brilliantly hosts explorations of view.  Sakyong Mipham’s Turning the Mind into an Ally is a primer for learning the basics and subtleties of mindfulness practice.

What goes around...

Scientists in Germany reported Thursday that the often-described sense of lost-hiker déjà vu, of having inadvertently backtracked while wandering in the woods — is real. “People really do walk in circles,” said Jan L. Souman of the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tubingen.  – The New York Times, August 2009

The path of meditation shines a light on habitual patterns that keep us lost, both to ourselves and the world we inhabit. For meditation to move forward, however, orientation is essential. As the article from the Times on lost hikers aptly demonstrates, orientation isn’t optional. We always have one. The question is: where is it taking us? Summarized notes and quotes from the Times’ article in italics:

As long as the sun or moon was out, volunteers were able to walk (more or less) in a straight line. But on cloudy days or dark nights, they would loop back on themselves, often several times.

Find a meditation teacher. Read a book that speaks to you. Find friends who are interested in meditation. Teachers and companions on the path are the sun and moon that meditators use to orient themselves.  They can help you find and adjust your direction. Like any discipline, meditation practice needs view or vision. Teachers and companions on the path of meditation can provide essential guidance.

Information sources in the brain are relative  — “they don’t tell you when you are moving in the same direction as an hour ago.” When it comes to being lost — “you cannot trust your own senses at all.” What sets experienced hikers apart? They are “more aware” of what has happened.

The desire to be somewhere else makes it very hard to see where you are and where you’ve been. Looking back on difficult periods in our life, we find that in many ways, our sense of being lost was partly self-imposed and self-perpetuating.

Of course, inasmuch as none of us really know where we are going, being lost is part of the creative process of living. Meditation supports an honest assessment of our situation as human beings. It is practicing acceptance — a first step toward understanding where we are now. Understanding where we are — and have been — is key to changing direction.

“One way to walk straight is to set your sights on a nearby tree, walk to it, find another tree in the same direction, and move to that”. In other words, proceed in steps or stages.

Don’t look for great and immediate staggering results from sitting on your meditation cushion. Set reasonable and thoughtful goals for yourself – and meet them. Authentic meditative traditions have a culture that embody this skillful means. As per Tibet’s greatest yogi/saint Milarepa — “Hasten slowly, and you will soon arrive.”

Without orientation, “little errors will compound themselves” and “when the errors start to build in one direction, the hiker often ends up going around in circles.”

We get frustrated or hurt by life, and then we get upset about being upset. Compounding habits seem to address our pain, but they only perpetuate it. At some point we have to relax and give ourselves a break. Be firm with yourself when you have to be, but there is never a good reason to be harsh or dogmatic. Be your own friend.

There is one sure way to avoid going around in circles:

“Your job as the lost person is to sit down.”

There are unexpected twists and turns to life, and long paths that seem to stretch out in front of us forever. Even so, it is a beautiful journey. When we meet it fully, we discover what it means to be human. Losing our way is an expression of losing a connection with our own heart. Often, even if it doesn’t feel right, we find reasons why we have to keep moving.

Sitting down, paying attention to the sensation of breathing, we can appreciate ourselves, relaxing the habitual patterns that cover our heart and obscure our vision.  Looking back on our restlessness, we realize there was a level of frustration, fear or even anger, behind our agitation. When you don’t really know why you’re moving or where you’re heading, find a meditation seat (and space for meditation) where you can be comfortable and sit down!

Editor’s Note: In Tibetan, the word for life as we know it is korwa – which means wheel. A traditional analogy for a live lived without understanding: a bee buzzing around in a jar. At the same time, movement is natural and necessary. And after all, it is possible to hide in stillness as well as activity. In either case, as Michael points out, the question is where are we trying go? For students of meditation, studying a meditation primer for even a few minutes a day can be enormously helpful on the journey.

There is the vague sense that the regular practice of meditation had been important to us, but the benefits of practice, if there ever were any, have become distant memories. Now, with fatigue in the face of our daily schedule, or excitement in the face of opportunities arising — meditation doesn’t look practical.

Even if we wanted to sit still for a while in our meditation room or spot, we wonder if we could. Sitting still seems either too exertive — it makes more sense to use the little time we have to just lie down and rest — or we are just too hassled by the pressures of our schedule, which while partially self-imposed, seems to have taken on a life and momentum of its own.

There is a hint of pride. We feel inspired or at least obligated to meet the challenges of our life and hopeful that we could rise to the occasion. Sitting down on our meditation cushion on the other hand, could be messy. We’re pretty sure that whatever the practice of meditation is supposed to be, we wouldn’t be doing it well. Who wants to do something that’s meant to be helpful and uplifting and be bad at it? Why impose that humiliation on ourselves?

Out of guilt or nostalgia, we might dust off a book on how to meditate by one of our favorite teachers. But the words don’t make sense in the way they once did. If we are honest with ourselves, we admit that beyond losing interest, there is the sense that our heads are full enough. Adding new ideas, however sublime, to the mix isn’t going to help. There just isn’t room.

We begin to think that the practice of meditation, perhaps even spirituality altogether, is for those who see things that aren’t really there — a matter of talking oneself into something other than life as it is — a kind of wishful thinking. We’ve heard about meditation as a path or “Way,” but if there is a way forward, we don’t see it.

This is a place all meditators have been. And let’s not mince words, maybe it really is time for you and your meditation practice — at least the one you think you had — to part company.  The discipline of meditation is a relationship. It takes work. Like any relationship, much depends on what you think you want out of it, and how you plan to go about getting it.

In his book, Turning the Mind into an Ally, Sakyong Mipham describes meditation practice in terms of concentric circles – the innermost circle being the practice of peaceful abiding, or the mind at ease in its own stability and strength.  Each circle in the concentric circles approaching the center is a step to uncovering this inherent quality of mind.

At the outermost circle, Sakyong Mipham makes an interesting observation. He points out that while formal meditation practice is focusing the mind on an object or sensation (like the sensation of breathing, for example), we are always holding the mind to something — a thought, a wish, an intention or irritation.

Of course, without the influence of a meditative discipline, we generally experience this holding on in a scattered or fixated way. But the point is taken. We are always meditating. It is just a matter of how. Sakyong Mipham has a word for the outermost circle of meditation: he calls it Life.

It turns out that formal meditation isn’t doing something different from what we do anyway.  Because it involves slowing down, however, it is a way to see what we do when we engage the world. Sometimes of course, we don’t want to see. We sense that if we saw the truth of our relationship with life, we couldn’t handle it. Or, even if we could handle it, now is somehow not the time.

We cannot escape meditation. Or to put it another way, we cannot escape our own intelligence, our own awareness. Looking away, avoiding, is seeing. As Pema Chödrön once put it, there is wisdom in going beyond any effort to escape the sharp edges of life.

Because stability and clarity are inherent qualities of mind, meditation practice is simply a way of slowing down and allowing these natural qualities to manifest. Sakyong Mipham’s point is that, in this effort,  “Life” and the way we live it, plays a role.

When the formal practice of meditation seems ambitious or impractical, he suggests, sit down at the kitchen table. Look out the window. Go for a walk.  In short, be friendly to yourself. If your schedule doesn’t permit extending hospitality to yourself, who is it for? Who’s in charge? Who sets the tone?

If you take the time and give some room for mind’s natural balance and intelligence to reassert itself, you can be there fully for a proper cup of tea. Enjoying a cup of tea with yourself, you may be inspired to explore and deepen the relationship. Formal practice no longer looks meaningless or threatening, it is simply a logical next step.