Another Anniversary of Buddha's Enlightenment
© Yeshe Chodon
December 3 we will meet as we have for at least four or is it five years or exactly how long have we been meeting like this? Anyway, we will meet out under the pine trees in the rustic lodge with the silent bookshelves full of environmental books and newsletters and the inefficient bathrooms. We will take places silently in a large circle on the nondescript carpet. Some have the little benches, some have pillows, a few have chairs.
I used to take pride in being able to sit in full lotus as long as was needed, only occasionally re-crossing my legs. I have never known if it's right over left or left over right. To someone somewhere it would matter. In Kundalini Yoga, women place left thumbs over right when clasping their hands. Or is it the opposite? I could look it up, but the hour is late. Maybe I'll look it up tomorrow and if you revisit this article you will know.
In any case, I used to take pride in the full lotus. Or, if need, be, I could kneel Japanese style disregarding feet, then legs getting numb. Then it was pride in the half lotus.Now I don't know how I sit.Some cross-legged way. There's a moment at the beginning wondering how I'll get through it, then thought rushes out through all the channels to dissipate somewhere outside its normal boundaries and the 45 or 50 minute sessions are more like time lapses than time spent.The body is weaker, but the meditation is stronger.
Always the wind. Drifting off on currents and then the wind bringing me back to the room and the time and place, then out again. There should be strong wind this weekend.
And always in a deep moment, from somewhere in the circle, someone starts reading the story from Old Path White Clouds by Thich Nhat Hanh. The saga of the Watches.
...He saw that every cell of his body contained all of Heaven and Earth, and spanned the three times -- past, present, and future. It was the hour of the first watch of the night.Gautama entered even more deeply into meditation. He saw how countless worlds arose and fell, were created and destroyed...
And so the beautiful, rhythmic, baffling story is read every year. Toward the end of his night of liberation,
...Gautama felt as though a prison which had confined him for thousands of lifetimes had broken open. Ignorance had been the jailkeeper...
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