Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Channeling the Laughing Buddha
So there I was in the zendo last night, sitting on a cushion, staring downward, miiindin' my ooown business... and I did something that I've never done before.
Reach enlightenment?
No.
Make headway in my quest for self-discovery?
No.
What did I do?
I laughed. Oh gawd, I am such a disrespectful jerk. I can't believe I laughed. Perhaps some people who know me well might find it surprising that I've been sitting all these years and haven't laughed until this point. But really, it's true: Ever since my first zazen effort, around age 20, I never laughed, neither alone nor in a zendo. I also made a point not to cough or itch my nose or do anything unless I absolutely had to. Although my mind is always running at a million miles an hour, unnecessary restless physical movement bothers me. I welcome the chance to be still, and to be around others who are still.
I used to silently applaud myself for having such a firm grasp on my mental state with respect to its relationship with my body. It may come naturally to most people, but some of us were born with a few screws loose. I had to work for it, but everything was mind over matter, and if I could maintain control, I didn't see how other people couldn't. But if someone had told me my mental strength and maturity would peak at age 23, maybe I would have been more forgiving.
So what was I laughing at? This is probably the most embarrassing part of my misdeed. I was laughing at something from a Fark thread. Something I posted, no less:
Someone else posted the original pic and caption, but I added the spider part. The angles of her appendages remind me of a tarantula at rest. Anyway, I posted that and someone responded that they were imagining her crawling backward up the escalator with her head bent back all creepy. And now it's haunting a few people's dreams, including my own. But not in a scary way, in an I-can't-keep-a-straight-face-during-meditation way.
To make matters worse, the group was small last night. There were two priests and two girls who were visiting for a UW class. I was the only "regular" person who had simply come to practice. And I messed it up!
No one cared, of course. Hell, someone took a phone call in that very same room two weeks ago. Still, extra noises are something I'd prefer to avoid when possible... kind of like spiders.
