Place 2: Problematic Meditation

Tuesday September 15, 2009 11:35 am

As I walked into the cemetery today a funeral procession was leaving, the last cars straggling out. The clock struck eleven while I watched. The line of slow-driving cars provided a strange reminder of the cemetery's purpose - its active, continuing purpose. It's not that I didn't know people were still being buried here, it's just that somehow seeing a funeral hadn't entered my mind as a possibility when I planned this outing.

The walk to the clearing was shorter than I remembered and my first impression when I got here was that the dirt pile seemed to have moved, grown and possibly given rise to several new dirt piles. I'm not sure if this is true but I'll compare my pictures to some from last week. I'm wondering what kind of work takes place here. The piles of dirt seem to be divided into different colors.

One of my favorite plants here is a wild fuzzy grass growing around the periphery of the clearing. I think it's a kind of foxtail. It's soft to touch and calming to watch as it bobs up and down in the breeze.

A possible crow is calling "Caw! Caw!" again, but seems farther away this time. In general the birds are less noisy than before, their calls less frequent. Last time I was here near dusk, an active time for birds. I'm recording sounds of the clearing to upload to the blog and to aid in identification of birds and insects. I will also use the recordings to track changes in bird and insect sounds from week to week.

As I look for a place to sit down on the ground, I notice a large, flat rock, rusty-iridescent, right in the middle of the clearing. It's about the same size and shape as a meditation cushion and a foxtail is growing right next to it. I sit down.

I just got startled and jumped, felt like someone was peeking over my shoulder, but it’s just the fuzzy grass stalk, right behind me, tickling and casting a shadow. Its shadow bobs on the ground next to the shadow of my head. Hot out here, I feel my skin sweating, a thin film, and sun baking my hair. Sirens in the background.

I like looking around at ground level, there's a whole miniature landscape down here. I remember from Japan that this is part of what's behind zen gardens: the idea of scale.

It’s comfortable here on the ground with my meditation cushion, legs crossed in front of me. I’ve been studying Buddhist meditation for a while, but I'm a terrible meditator. The problem is I don’t do it, not on my own. Even in my weekly meditation group I struggle. I think about my shopping list and do all the other things that the Tibetan monk who leads us jokingly tells us not to do. And I laugh along with everyone else when he tells us that, as if it doesn’t apply to me.

Now the birds are noisier than when I came. I hear geese – the one sound I recognize. A car drives up, right into the clearing from the other side, the side that isn't fenced-off. It stops, turns around, and drives away. I feel uncomfortably exposed sitting on my rock and leave immediately.