MEDITATION
You Step And Then You Glide

One Saturday, my husband Javier and I had a good experience at a local Buddhist center with a round, smiling Balinese monk named Bantu. He was very difficult to understand, but the gist of what he said was that we were all right and getting better. “Right action” had led us to the large, empty, preternaturally calm meditation room.

“Umbrellas keep rain off, yes?” We nodded, unsure of where this was going. He gave a big smile. “Rain is suffering, meditation is like the umbrella. It makes a layer between you and the rain.” Now that made sense. Bantu then led us through a fifteen-minute sitting meditation, followed by a five-minute walking meditation, and then we said our goodbyes.

Afterward, as a reward for “right action,” Javier and I shared a hot chocolate at a nearby cafe. I said, “There’s another meditation on Wednesday. Do you want to go?” “Absolutely,” he said, feeling blissful and magnanimous, capable of anything. A feeling that was shortly to change.

On Wednesday, we were greeted by a tall, austere, saffron-clad white guy. He didn’t say his name or smile. I sensed a serious lack of merriment in the zendo. Where was little Bantu? Remembering his smile had gotten me through the harder parts of Saturday’s fifteen-minute meditation. This session was supposed to be two hours. Two hours with a monk who never smiled, who didn’t seem warm, and who certainly wasn’t curious about the state of my small, beginner’s umbrella! It did not yet have a smooth, waterproof surface! How would I stay out of the rain? I felt anxious.

“Let’s just do half an hour,” I said to Javier as we took off our shoes. He agreed. In fact, he looked relieved. “This is going to be hard,” he said. True. The prospect of being alone and quiet with one’s thoughts is mentally disquieting. Javier and I kissed as if it would be a long time before we saw each other again, and then we padded into the meditation room.

Suffice it to say that instead of calmly focusing on my breath, I focused on what it would be like to win the Pulitzer. What would I say? Then I struggled to “let go” of an alluring image of the Tufts track team in their locker room. Then I scared myself silly in contemplation of death. Just as I thought I would go stark, raving mad, my attention shifted to the leaves rustling outside. They made a nice sound. Why hadn’t I noticed before? I listened. Then the bell sounded. It was time for walking meditation.

I urge you to try this. You’ll find that – if you pay attention – walking feels wonderful. Your body was made for it. However, you must calm down and go slowly and let nothing distract you from the feeling of your heel and then arch and then your toes on the floor; the flowing movement of each step. If you lose concentration, you’ll immediately feel like the biggest goofball there ever was. Look at you, goofball, shuffling around the room like a duckling after the lead duck – a white guy dressed up in robes. Please. And to top it all off you could be with your friends, drinking at the pub and guessing which entrepreneurial wanna-be was about to be fired by Donald Trump on The Apprentice.

You put one foot down, shift your weight through the step, push off with your toes and then down comes your other foot. The process is as rhythmic as breathing. Incredibly, I “Zen-ed” out and had an insight. In order to move forward, you must leave what has just happened behind. And, in moving forward, as in living, you are in flux, constantly balancing. No one step is secure and forever, what is secure and forever is change.

Elizabeth Bastos is a writer who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Subscribe to Mandala