This past week, circumstances brought me to the local California DMV without an appointment. The building was highly digitalized, complete with QR codes, text messages involving more codes, a large mounted screen flashing upcoming alphabetic/numerical coded-clients, alphabetized staff cubicles, a triage gatekeeper worthy of an ER, and of course we, the drivers, lined up and then seated in rows before the screens and counters. I knew I'd have to wait, but that kind of waiting is always an opportunity for meditation, especially a meditation on waiting itself, which is my subject today. One of my favorite Buddhist quotes is from Hermann Hesse's novel Siddhartha. In the story, circumstances eventually lead the future Buddha, Siddhartha, to seek a job. The potential employer questions Siddhartha about his "credentials" for the job and Siddhartha replies simply : "I can think, I can wait, and I can fast." I have written various pieces on that powerful quote, as condensed attributes of the spiritual life. At the DMV, "I can wait" was at the top of theses skills.
Meditation in a packed room of"strangers" is quite different than meditation in your own quiet, dedicated space and practice. The waiting space at DMV was vibrant with activity. Along with the visual pull of the large screen with number codes displaying changing rounds of applicants, a second screen flashed California public programs, while code numbers were simultaneously announced by a robot voice. Those waiting were a cross section of American life with multiple languages, styles, ages, and handicaps. An elderly man sitting next to me was watching a movie on his cell phone, volume full on!. I was prepared for the wait, but rather than sit with my work I brought or my book, I chose meditation to have a moment to acclimate. No one seemed to notice my closed eyes, quiet breath, or stillness. The screen rotations and announcements carried on shifted; the noisy cellphone movie continued. In meditation, the sounds were no longer a nuisance. I was waiting for my turn.
Meditation comes in infinite forms. Reflecting on how meditation has changed for me over the years, I realized one of the biggest shifts s came when I stopped orchestrating some inner event or experience. Rather, sitting has become a gentle shift to what I can only call the meditative mind as it moves away from the calculating mind. The calculating mind is a mind that plans and maneuvers, it designs, interprets and judges. It "adds things up", that is, it reaches conclusions. It is a significant aspect of human intelligence, often self-serving. Over the years, my sense of meditative mind has changed from an abstract emptiness, or a thought stopping stillness, to a kind of waiting. It is like the way you wait for a friend that you know is on the way, and will soon walk through the door. Or while sitting with a friend, you wait for them to speak, because you sense they have something to tell you, and you don't want to disrupt, or take over the conversation. Or, when all conversation has stopped, you simply share a connection. The calculating mind may still hang around and intrude, but it can be spotted and gently silenced.
The patience to wait develops over years of observation. You discover answers, guidance, direction, connections, are not obligated to only reveal themselves in mediation. Times of turning inward can yield unexpected clarity and serendipitous events later, while out in the bustle of everyday life. So the conversations around me, the robotic announcements, the cell phone movie's voices next to me, don't matter. It's all life. The quiet center speaks through all, navigates around all, or waits its turn--later today, tomorrow, months, years from now. This is the fabric of life in which we all have our part--wherever you are headed today, or this week, you are an aspect of that fabric. All the upheaval of recent events are also aspects of that fabric. Meditation gives us the where-with-all to move with the flow of life. It brings the patience, trust, expectation, directive that requires going with, rather than arguing against, or fighting, resisting and/or ignoring the movement of Life. We can wait.
For poetry: https://allpoetry.com/.../8625707-Life-by-Juan-Ramon-Jimenez
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../Isaidtomysou/index.html
https://www.poetry-chaikhana.com/.../NowIBecomeMy/index.html