Breath. It’s a lot to work with. I can’t say I’ve come to any great understanding of it, or anything, over the past seven days of vipassana. It was a challenging, diverse, beautiful, hopeful, and inspiring week of living. I’m beyond grateful for having the motivation to do it, but I won’t claim anything about the experience except its completion.
Every day during breakfast and lunch (we ate no meal after noon) I would read a food reflection aloud to the group. On the back of the laminated paper, someone had scrawled a trailing note in blue pen. A snippet of insight from Ajahn Buddhadosa, the founding abbot of Dipabhavan retreat center’s parent monastery, Suan Mok:
“Thinking you are somebody who has attained or realized on the personal level comes from a sense of self. So we make no claims. If there is something inside you that wants to claim something, then you observe that as a condition of the mind.”
Having just left the monastery this morning, everything is fresh. To give myself some time to integrate the experience, I don’t have much to say this week. But I did want to check in with my subscribers to pass along one quick jot from my journal, for a glimpse into my inner and outer worlds (though this week I’ve been reminded there’s no distinguishing between those two).
This afternoon was clarifying for me. I had a normal, stuttering 45 minute sit—every five minutes, glancing up. Are we there yet? Shit. No.
After the bell rang for walking meditation, I had every intention of doing piss-all and lounging somewhere. But I saw a lizard jump onto a wall about thirty feet away and my biologist brain couldn’t resist it.
Once it became still, it looked perfectly like foliage. Snaking vines surrounded it. I was only half sure I’d seen it. So I started walking towards the wall, as slowly and as consciously as I could. A five step process for each single step: lift the heel, the toe, move the foot, lower it, place it on the ground. Repeat. Don’t forget to breathe.
It had yellow and brown dorsal stripes and a long, skinny, twig-like tail. Its hind legs were perfect for scampering. I could see its yellowish head and neck from a good distance. It had eyes almost like a chameleon, raised from its sockets and rotund. With yellow stripes along its eye and stark yellow eyes, it was striking to look at. We made a lot of eye contact.
Inching closer, statue-esque, I clearly confused it. Too slow to be a threat but clearly massive, I made it uncomfortable. I got as close as I could and then watched. Silent and still. Fascinated, completely.
Another smaller and browner lizard of the same ilk scampered on a different wall. A comparitively ginormous, thick-necked skink tussled with a bug further back in the weeds. My yellow fellow stayed pretty close and easy to see. He hid in the thicket. I sat and watched. He crept along branches. I sat and watched. He flung himself, gaping mouthed at a bug and missed. I kept my giggle internal.
Everything he did was a delight. The shakey waddle-way he clung to branches, the quick jolts he’d make to eat or evade me. His colors were lovely, changing with the light and shadow to suit his backdrop. I did lose him, after some time.
I went to my favorite place to sneakily lie down on the green canopied road by the meditation hall. We were not allowed to lay anywhere on the monastery grounds except for in bed, out of respect of the Buddha.
I let my eyes lose focus. Saw colors and movement. With loose focus, I counted four lovely warbler-sized yellow birds in one cluster of branches. I watched. Focused and still, a part and yet apart.
When the bell rang for the next 45 minute sit, I felt anew. Keeping my gaze soft and low and open, I witnessed all motion and labeled them. “Motion.” “Shadow.” “Light.”
I’d try to keep from really naming things, but “squirrel",” “girl scratching her leg,” and “weirdly large ant,” all found identities in my mind. As connected to my periphery. as anywhere else, I stayed uni-vision across my full plane of sight. Impassive. Letting the world permeate the meditation, not invested or attached to the happenings, yet connected to them.
My maternal grandfather was the first person in my life to teach me about Buddhism. By witnessing him sit each morning from our earliest childhood memories, he gifted each of his grandchildren access to meditation and the philosophy behind it.
He wrote a poem about his meditation practice, comparing it to sitting in wait, like a hunter. My little yellow teachers, the lizard and the birds reminded me of his poem. I’ll dredge it up for you all and tack it onto next week’s writing.
Until then.