City Sounds

Quiet is often considered a pre-requisite for meditation, and quiet is hard to come by in the city.  Below is the view from my meditation spot--our lovely alley and busy street.  Sounds through the open window:

birds beyond counting

neighborhood dogs

backyard gatherings

cars, buses, trucks and the occasional fire or police siren

airplanes overhead 

the innumerable non-functional vehicles our next-door neighbor is compelled to acquire and attempt to fix

So I try to make them part of the meditation.  Breathe the sounds in, breathe the sounds out.  I think of the noise as energy--the energy of the city--and try not to give it a name (bus, bird) or a value (*#@! motorcycle).  I feel the energy of the city on my skin, breathe it in, breathe it out, let myself be another part of it.  Just another bit of energy, another bit of noise.

I will admit that when the motorcycle starts revving I usually just give up and try again later.

Storytelling

Working retail I am blessed with frequent opportunities for observing human nature.  The other day I was paged to help a woman get some bulk eucalyptus leaves.  The first person she had talked to couldn't find them and mentioned that we might be out.  She was very upset because "I called ahead, and was told that you had them.  I've driven from faraway-suburb, etc etc."  We did in fact have them, they had just been over-looked.  But even though I found them for her, she couldn't change the story:  "I would have been so mad if you hadn't had them, since I called ahead and I drove so far etc etc."

At first I was irritated, but I did have to remember similar moments in my own life.  For instance:  standing in line to return something.  By the time I've gotten to the front of the line I've run through every possible reason the return might be refused, and prepared detailed counter-arguements, so that when the clerk simply refunds my money I feel a bit cheated.

These are small but potent examples of what yoga terms asmita, or the story of self, defined as one of the sources of suffering.  Even such a small story becomes part of our greater story of self, and thus becomes hard or impossible to let go of, since that means letting go of ourselves.  But if I keep such a tight grip on the story, I cannot respond to what is actually happening.  I'm still in the world where there is no bulk eucalyptus, and the store employees won't help me.

All this is very small, but if I cannot let go of a small story, how much more do I resist when the story is important?  Think of dialogue (or lack thereof) between political or religious groups.  Even when presented with facts that challenge or refute a story, the members of the group cannot let go or change it.  This is as true of myself as any other.

So what do we do?  Learning to live without the story of self is the work of a lifetime (or several), but we can try to hold the stories with an open hand.