In the early morning after I meditate, I enjoy walking mindfully in nature. I love the solitude of practice. And yet, how precious it is to be able to practice together. I love remembering that the root meaning of the word “conspire” is to breathe together. How precious it feels today, to be part of such a community. How vital it seems to remember that we human beings among other human beings.
Our society has become so polarized, so lonely. What a gift it is to sit down with other people and remember the kind of understanding that aligns with the root sense of being in the midst of–not agreeing with every single opinion and view, but accepting as a fellow human being who years to be happy and at ease and awake to what life can be.
Let’s be part of that conspiracy.
In the sutra called “The Four Foundations of Mindfulness,” the Buddha describes how to wake up, explaining that the first foundation is the body. This is a deceptively simple statement, and interesting. Why was I here? Why did I even have to have a body that had to make beds and do homework and other torments? Why couldn’t I be a cloud or a vapor so I could get places effortless and see and know things without, well, friction and effort?
It turns out that the way to something greater is through mindfulness of the body. It is through conspiring with others–with noticing that others breathe as you breathe, that the body and the potential you have inherited are not yours alone but your part in the common human condition. Bit by bit, and quite reluctantly at times, life pushed out onto that road that led away from the high school, out of the known world of my familiar thoughts and associtations into the unknown world that we glimpse from time to time when we open up–the wild unknown of the ETERNAL NOW. It appears again and again, when we are in question. Even last night! One day this week, everything went my way and I felt blessed–the next day, all bad news and I felt utterly unseen, all my efforts ineffectual and pathetic. Finally, I just had to laugh–just seeing the ego scrambling to get the story sorted out, to insist on itself, it’s claim to be right and the best, whether I was playing the winner or loser! I went out to sit with others in a local sangha, and as I was doing walking mediation, some wild spark of awareness and willingness in me allowed me to let go all that arguing and affirming for a second and just open up to life. I felt the support of the other around me. For a moment, I felt as if I were stepping forward to volunteer for a brave and reckless mission, to be wide be stripped of the veil of thought, the armor of ego, to be open to what may come. For a moment or two, I knew there is another way to take in impressions. We can let them pierce us, rather than buffer them with the mind. I also knew I would not have been able to make that moment of, well, appearing, showing up for duty for a second instead of being lost in thought, without the support of the others around me.
Another comment last time mentioned the old meaning of “gracious” as Godly, also acceptable, and merciful and compassionate. In Lord of the Rings, the beautiful elf Arwen gives the hobbit Frodo a potion of the grace that grants her immortality as a gift for healing and strength. Ron noted that this the way that love and compassion lays us open to grace, which can never be created by us, only received. Yet we can lay ourselves open to what is higher–and Frodo’s pure-hearted willingness to undertake an impossible mission sparked Arwen’s compassion and allowed grace to enter. I’ll never foret hearing Cardinal O’Connor of New York say that Mother Theresa once told him that he had to give God permission to enter his heart.
There are moments in life when we do give God and life permission to enter, either due to the thousand natural shocks the flesh is heir to or devoutly wished for and cultivated through prayer and meditation, when we abandon all false hope and enter life. When we find ourselves simply sitting and breathing with others. I am thinking of those who know what it’s like to sit with those who are suffering. I am think of what it is like to wait in an airport or a train station, in a church, a meditation hall, and even writing in this space on a snowy day. We really are all kin, and what we have much to offer one another. We can show up.
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