June 22, 2010
A cup of tea, blue mug, the string hanging over the side with the small pennant attached. Unnecessary stirring due to a certain reluctance. Maybe now would be a good time to truly stay in the moment. Does it count if my motivation is to avoid the future? It counts. Staying in the moment is so hard to do, any motivation is fine. Thoughts swirl. Why is the brain so meticulous, picking up every random thought the way dust bunnies collect in my house? I can always tell when I’ve played too much solitaire, relationships transmute into cards. King to my ace, a series of 3456 that moves to sit on the 7, all spades. And then the trash novel I’ve been reading, “his intense dark eyes followed her,” and then why does the GPS treat intersecting highways, mere exits in reality, as an opportunity to repeat, in that loud, mechanical voice, “In .4 miles stay left, then continue 12.5 miles on highway 680.” The brain seems to have little discrimination; any data, like dust, will do. And I aid and abet this willfulness less I be forced to notice that I have no goal, no obvious purpose, no consistent connection. I too, float about like dust, staying with Brigid, Jan, Cindy, Jenifer. Which day of the week it is determines whether I am in Oakland, Napa, Fairfield or Sacramento.
What am I doing? I am between trips, as I sip the tea, tea, the one constant—I drink it everywhere. I suppose even more than the tea, I am the one constant. Me, pushing me, forcing change, forcing discomfort, pulling at old ways and assumptions that say this is how life should be, this is what is deemed successful. Where have I wandered? Home, such as it is, for four weeks then back on a plane, back to Paris and then a tiny town in northeast France to sit for three weeks with a Tibetan rimpoche, to receive a teaching, stumble about with my high school French, live in a gymnasium—only 15 euros a night. Why? Ah, the tea. I hold the blue mug with both hands, fingers wrapped around soaking in the warmth. The solidity of the mug that can hold hot water over and over again comforts me. Sipping the hot tea I remind myself to be here, feel my butt on the chair, feel the heat in my hands. And off goes my brain. Einstein said that if anyone could focus on one thing for 45 seconds at a time, he could master his universe. Makes sense to me. My head feels foggy; I’m still driving in my car, listening to music, tired from night after night of minimal sleep. Ah, the litany of complaints is much more satisfying than considering what I’m doing with my life, especially when I’m a bit cloudy on that issue. Waking up can take lifetimes, my teacher tells me. No rush, as long as I am on the path. But why do something if there’s no hope of succeeding, at least in this life time? Point. That kind of delayed gratification is definitely un-American. So, what else would I do? Well, I could, to quote Jenifer, do something fun and trivial and make lots of money. Right. OK, well I could go back to work, help others. But inevitably that road leads back to here, that sense of utter depletion of having given too much, of facing yet again the fragility of being human and the inevitability of my own death. I sip the tea again. There is no solution to this argument. Nothing, nothing appeals.
When I am face to face with the rimpoche or other enlightened beings, something happens, my brain tingles, my heart feels stretched the way looking at the ocean causes my eyes to relax, zoom out and feel the size of this planet. It is as if, when these awakened souls see me, when they really look into my soul, I can, for that brief moment, see myself, see the possibility of myself, of how big my heart can be how much my soul can hold and at the same time, still be held by something bigger, something knowing.
I sip my tea. Einstein says 45 seconds is enough to change your life. I sigh. 45 seconds. It is an eternity.
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