Post Meditation

Two and a half days of meditation.

My body hurts and my eyes feel popped open like corkscrews but still, my heart is at ease and my skin is porous to the world. The barrier between “me” and the car I drive all the way home, between the valley the road cuts through, between the range the mountains string together, between the continent from which those mountains rise, between the ocean upon which the continent floats – all of it feels like water and I am a sponge. What a relief. What a substantial gift to be given each day.

It’s never easy going back, even when we’re excited after a rich weekend of study and practice and even when we’re ready to attend to the mail, the phone messages, the to-do piles, etc. But there is joy in the unwinding, and re-entry is so intriguing that the teachings from the weekend are immediately called forth and helpful on the spot. At my parent’s house I have to multi-task: knit while waiting for the washing machine to finish while talking to dad while eating soy ice cream. Life is suddenly complex again but I am prepared, can stay with my breath and interact with my environment at the same time. The whole experience feels spherical, radical, dare I say, a joyful litmus test for the times to come.

See, even here I cannot fully come back – not to the page, to the desk, to the office, to the cabin, to the driveway, to the valley, etc. Fearless groundlessness.