I am a tree
View(s):
COVID is yet with us, but not Curfew. We can, now, move out.
It’s not that Curfew was intolerable: “COVID does not a prison make or Curfew a cage”. But a chance to move out for a few days is not to be laughed at. Particularly when all one has to do is to go with the flow.
So we go to Nattandiya, on a three-day retreat at a Buddhist Meditation Centre deep inside the Roman Catholic heartland. It is well organized, well laid-out. We are comfortable. I am the oldest by far and the only male in a group of eight and so I get some preferential treatment, gracefully accepted.
My first experience of a multi-day retreat. I plan to make maximum use of it. Apart from the programmes for the day, we have a chance of a one-to-one discussion with the resident monk: a huge bonus for me. He is very fluent in English and I have no hesitation in telling him about my background, my limited experience, and my being uncomfortable with the Sinhala language of the scriptures. “No problem,” he says “because it is the Teaching that matters, not the language.” Neither he nor I refer to “name and form” more than what I volunteer. I am a yogi and that is all.
I confess the difficulties I have in concentration, the rules, the regimen. “None of that matters,” he says “forget the rules.” He breaks it down to absolute essentials. I am a beginner: I only need to look at my body breathing. Not my body, but the body.
Not “I breathe” but “It breathes”. Nothing more. Be comfortable, do not try to think about what I should be doing. Just be aware. Be an Observer: not a participant. Just be aware of the body breathing. Then, move away from it and watch it. Forget past failures. Begin again, now.
So I try. It is difficult. The Mind – not COVID, not Curfew, but it’s the Mind that is the jailor – it will not leave me alone and it wanders away with my attentiveness trailing in its wake. I have been warned that the images, scenarios that may occur are but hallucinations: later I realize that I am drifting off to sleep, day dreaming. How an entire narrative can come into being and play itself out in the blink of an eye! “Take a break from a sitting posture and do some walking meditation.” That wakes me up and, when I resume sitting the mind is clear and malleable and I can concentrate. “Switch between these,” I am told.
When sitting, just breathe … breathe ….breathe. When walking, just be aware of one step at a time. Just watch yourself walk….walk….walk. Do not try anything more complex. Just be mindful, live the moment.
I find these absolutely basic steps helpful. Get outside myself and look at this body. It reacts to stimuli, but do not dwell on all that. These are still early days.
Just breathe, just take steps, let the body relax, the muscles lose their tension and the jaw drop. Just be aware of all this but do not analyze, do not try to follow the instructions given in books. Relax. Be aware, live only the moment.
I begin to get it. And then, I stumble upon Standing Meditation.
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Reaching the end of one of the sandy walkways I stop, but do not turn around. Why must I? I remain standing, watching myself standing.
“It was peaceful, relaxing, joyous” I noted in my Journal, later.
“I could follow the breath too. Could feel the shift of the balance of the body all the time. Quietness came later. It seemed so natural, but felt it was meant to end. That’s the Mind’s clock ticking away, pushing me away.
“Always keep focus on observation. Analysis can come later, upon recapitulation..”
Later, meditating in a grove of trees, “I am standing among trees. The wind blows, rustles the leaves on the trees, flows around the trees. And me. For the wind I am another tree.”
Back home I try standing in meditation in my garden. Unexpectedly, it proves possible. I close my eyes and become a part of the garden. I am still. Above the waist the body is totally relaxed. The hips, knees and lower joints are constantly flexing to maintain balance. After about 15 minutes I open my eyes. I feel surprisingly tall, much taller than I was earlier. Like a tree. I try it another day: the experience is replicated.
Maybe I can become a tree?