If you’ve ever tried to pay attention to your thinking, I mean really pay attention, you’ve probably noticed what a noisy place your headspace can be. At times, it might resemble a crowded cafe. You find yourself tuning in and out of different conversations – except you’re a part (and sometimes the sole participant) in every one of them. Meditation, which can take many forms, is a process of getting more in touch with your mind, and sometimes quieting the mind. Poets will often title a poem “meditation on…” a rose, a windswept field, the road to Alhambra, the last fig of fall, etc. etc. Meditation is an attempt to focus the mind, and often, in it’s most spiritual form, it is an attempt to focus on nothingness – a complete clearing of thoughts. If you’ve ever paid attention to that noisy cafe, you realize just how hard the practice can be.
I practice a kind of passive meditation – I think most of us call it zoning out. I might sense my thoughts going in a direction and then lean in to that by sticking with the thoughts or expanding on them. I’ll also pick something to contemplate and run with it for a bit – the way the clouds cover the city or the distinct sounds I can pick out while sitting on a bench. This morning on my walk, I found my mind treading a familiar and well-worn path – I found myself debating the notion of true love with my ex-fiancee. I’ve had this debate countless times. It never goes anywhere – I almost always win. It’s often circular. I find myself countering things that were said. I usually use the word projecting a few times. I don’t like going there, but sometimes it just happens. I probably entered and left that debate a few times over the course of half an hour. As I got on the bridge crossing the Mississippi, I told myself, “ok, time to change the subject.” I began practicing a type of walking meditation. I found myself staring at the shadow cast by the railing – a long and wavy line down the right side of the walkway. As thoughts tried to enter (about the shadow, about the debate, about the thought of meditating) I simply said to myself “shhhh, not now.” A handful of times I could successfully walk and not think anything. The silence was usually broken by the realization that my mind was blank – to which I would congratulate myself and then think “damn it, that’s a thought.”
Every once in a while, I try another little experiment as I walk. It’s less of a meditation and more of an attempt to trust my body. (I feel like I’ve written about this before, but can’t find it on the blog – if I did, sorry for repeating myself). If I have a decent length of straight path and nobody in front or behind me for a good bit, I will close my eyes and walk. I usually have to build up to it. I’ll take maybe six or seven steps and then peek. Or I might feel ,myself drifting and peek. Sometimes I get determined not to look and begin counting my steps. I’m not sure I’ve ever gotten higher than the mid-twenties without looking. I am always surprised at how the two activities, seeing and walking, are so connected. With my eyes closed, I first notice my pace. It gets a little faster and my steps get a little heavier – as if I’m trying to more firmly plant myself on the ground. Then I usually notice my balance. If I pay too much attention to balance, I’m sure to start drifting. When I’m most successful is when I focus on something other than my walking. Like the mini meditations, I get ahead of myself with the thought of being successful and ruin the entire experiment. There were too many people out this morning to try this today.
By the time I got home, I had already thought about a handful of other topics – jobs, writing, moving, and how I should spend my day. I sat down to with my second cup of coffee and my book Eat, Pray, Love. I’ve made very little progress with the book. Going to blues shows down in Mississippi might have taken up some of my time – not a great excuse. I still find the author, Gilbert, to be a turn-off. I continue reading because I find myself identifying with some of her experiences. That said, I cringe a bit when I read passages like:
Tulsi is just about the cutest little bookworm of an Indian girl you ever saw, even cuter since one lens of her “specs” (as she calls her eyeglasses) broke last week in a cartoonish spiderweb design, which hasn’t stopped her from wearing them. Tulsi is so many interesting and foreign things to me at once – a teenager, a tomboy, an Indian girl, a rebel in her family….
I quickly ran through the list, trying to see how marriageable I would appear in Indian society. I don’t know whether my horoscope is good or bad, but I am definitely too old and I’m way too educated, and my morals have been publicly demonstrated to be quite tarnished…
I try not to let what feels like a condescending narrator bog me down too much. It distracts, but doesn’t take away from connecting with some of the experiences. I stopped my reading after a particularly impactful chapter. In it, Gilbert is struggling to understand her divorce. She’s talking about how she would like nothing more than some closure. She knows her husband hates her for leaving the relationship. Naturally, I paused to think about this. After reading some of my blog, my ex-fiancee accused me of hating her. I don’t think it’s a fair assessment – at best I can say it’s complicated. I certainly don’t like that she left, and I don’t like how she handled leaving, but I don’t hate her as a person. Sometimes, I wonder if I really know her as a person. Gilbert wants forgiveness and also wants to find peace. One of her friends at the Ashram describes marriage as a sewing together of two people and divorce as a kind of amputation suggesting that the longer the relationship or the rougher the amputation, the harder it is to recover. Gilbert acknowledges she’s been walking around for a few years with a phantom limb. That same friend later shows her to a tower, gives her some written statements about letting go and she meditates and has an epiphany / vision that allows her to let go – that finally sets her free. I can’t say that I identify with the epiphany part – that feels entirely too convenient, but I have had moments when I’ve realized that my ex-fiancee’s view of our relationship has no bearing on my view of our relationship. That her denial of it may annoy me, but it does not diminish what I felt. Gilbert concludes the chapter by writing about spiritual ceremonies and rituals. I read and thought about the rock that my ex-fiancee tossed into the ocean – her ritual of letting go of her late husband. Sometimes we need these things.
I don’t expect an epiphany to bring me peace. I can’t think of many times in life when it has. I think I like the messiness of life a little too much to want complete peace. I see value in the effort, in the failing, and in the small triumphs. I find humor in the fact that as I clear my mind, I get excited that I did it, which completely pulls me out of that blank state. Instead of an epiphany, I expect an erosion of sentiment. I expect progress to be followed by regress. I expect to dig in and let go many times over. And when I get tired of the debate, I hope to have the presence of mind to change the subject.