Learning to Meditate In 4 second Intervals
Yesterday I cried these huge, body convulsing sobs of ridiculousness, just almost comical in their expression. Almost. I could have turned the music off, I guess. I could have opted out of wandering around the house…doing whatever it was I was doing. In the end I did; I made a Facebook photo caption joke out of the whole thing and went to a place where crying doesn’t work, where tears get in the way and where no one will run over and hug you if you get the sniffles.
I am not a person for whom crying is cathartic. That is not to say you won’t find me curled up on the couch with a stack of DVDs from the rent-at-your-own-risk section of the store when things get rough; the equivalent, I suppose, to those worn out cassettes of years gone by: meticulously crafted for just this sort of occasion. Oh, don’t pretend you didn’t have at least one. Maybe you created it yourself, or perhaps it’s just a mix tape of love songs from a failed affair. You played on repeat though, to the dismay of anyone within earshot of your room, and you wallowed. As adults, we graduate to DVDs. Well and youtube playlists. Mine is called simply, “sad”. From time to time, I’ll add to it. I’m not too proud to admit this to the internet.
When I came home yesterday from my meditation/distraction I was back in the thick of it again, angst ridden, queasy and full of delicate fractures. Walking the razor edge between “I’m ok, I’m all right!” and “I’m going to bed now, see you in a month”.
I’m trying to think about meditation in terms of these little intervals of the day where there’s just nothing in my brain. Or, where maybe I’m doing something but nothing PAINFUL is happening inside my head. Because that’s just not very often, so when sometimes I look up and go “HEY! That was a few seconds where the absence of pain happened, where nothing was in my head!” I like to call that meditation after the fact. I don’t care if you don’t think it’s meditation, fuck you. You’re not the one who gets to decide.
Fuck zazen. Nothing makes me want to think my way out of a situation more than sitting. I know, Brad Warner, I know. That’s when I need it the most. Why don’t we sit down over dinner sometime and hash this all out. In the meantime, here’s when my mind is blank:
re-sighting the gun after I check the first shot and see that it’s in the orange center
loading an AR mag
weeding the garden
building a fire
stapling targets to cardboard
coloring. Inside the lines, though. outside the lines is maddening.
People ask me “well is it working?” What the fuck am I supposed to say to that? Of course it is. Every day the world keeps spinning, doesn’t it? Yesterday I was in pain, and then I wasn’t, and then I was. Like everyone, yeah?
Sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and say Hey how about if today we just stop trying to make it different and just make it through?