Upon returning from a recent trip to Costa Rica to attend a wedding:
Costa Rica was an onslaught on the senses. So many people milling about in the market places, in the churches, in family gatherings - brothers and sisters, cousins, aunts and uncles, children and babies, dogs and birds - all coming and going. Of course, rapid Spanish everywhere with occasion much shorter translations. So much noise from cars, unmuffled trucks. Driving or even being a passenger in a car was an exercise in moment by moment mindfulness, negotiating endless turns with oncoming traffic, having to be ever watchful of motor bikes darting in and out of traffic in the urban areas, potholes and dirt roads in the mountains. And a wealth of new sights - signs and wires everywhere, buildings of many colors, open air “sodas” and other places to eat - all accompanied by the cacophony of passing traffic, tin roofs on small houses and shacks made of whatever material was at hand, shelter having a different meaning in a near equatorial country versus our northern one of wintry weather. And mountains - mountainous towns and cities, mountains in the distance, mountains covered with clouds and mountains verdant with tropical life, magnificent mountain vistas in the higher reaches. An explosion of color with flowers everywhere - on the ground, hanging from vines, in bushes and trees with fruit hanging heavy from chocolate, papaya, mango, and other trees whose with names I’ve forgotten. By the roadside, in the weeds, in gardens and forests, brilliant flowers whether cultivated or haphazard.
With such a blitz of the senses, mindfulness took on another dimension that I have yet to integrate. The experiences were so intense, so warm and welcoming, so revelatory of a different culture, a different way of being in family, so continuous that I began to feel like an overstuffed suitcase - packed with one event after another, one array of emotional responses after another that I initially felt needed to breathe and be carefully assimilated until my northern reserve began to break wide open to the ebb and flow of colorful intensity that was Costa Rica.
A friend sent me this article from mindful.org that I love. It speaks to new and experienced meditators alike. Our practice is a continual process of letting go into this new moment and this new moment - with these new moments varying widely in intensity and emotional as well as actual color.
As part of the “Real Love with Sharon Salzberg” event hosted by Women of Wisdom and Mindful, meditation teacher and author Sharon Salzberg discussed the true meaning of love for ourselves, others and life. The following is an excerpt of her talk.
The first meditation instruction I ever got was sit down and feel your breath, just feel the natural flow of your in and out breath. And as many of you have probably heard, I was very disappointed at first. I thought, “Feel my breath? I came all the way to India.” You know, where’s the magical esoteric practice thats going to wipe out all my suffering and make me a totally happy person?
I’d been going to school in Buffalo, New York and I thought, I could’ve stayed in Buffalo to feel my breath. And then I thought, “How hard can this be?” And it was like whoa—it is not so easy. I thought ok, what will it be, like 800 breaths or 900 breaths before my mind starts to wander? And to my absolute amazement, it was one breath and I’d be gone. And I’d be way gone.
What I heard over and over again, what I did not believe actually, was the most important moment in that practice happens after you’ve been gone: after you’ve been distracted, after you’ve fallen asleep, after you’ve just connected. Because it’s really a practice of recovery—how do we let go, and how do we start again?
It’s really a practice of recovery—how do we let go, and how do we start again?
It’s not that easy, because we are so conditioned. Everybody knows from life, we just sit down to think something through, and our minds jump to the past, jump to the future, they’re all over the place. And very often what happens is just this tirade: I can’t believe I’m thinking, no one else in the room is thinking, they’re not thinking how many people live here. Every single one of them is on the verge of enlightenment. I’m the only one who’s thinking, why am I thinking? I’m so stupid, I’m so bad, no one else is thinking. They’re sitting here in bliss. Maybe they are thinking, but they’re thinking beautiful thoughts. I think these stupid thoughts, like I am thinking about roundabouts, who thinks about roundabouts? I don’t work for the highway department ….
That’s usually what we do. And when we fall into that, not only have we extended the length of the distractions somewhat considerably, but it’s so demoralizing. It’s so exhausting, we don’t feel the wherewithal to start over, to come back, to begin again.
So the secret ingredient of that whole process is self-compassion. You don’t need to go on that tirade, and if it begins you can let it go. You can have some kindness towards yourself and just return. That’s why we say meditation is a practice of resilience. We say the healing is in the return, not in never having wandered to begin with.