Meditation shows me my burdens were mostly imagined. But even imaginary ones can carry real emotional weight.
I remember this cartoon I saw perhaps 20 years ago while waiting at a doctor’s office. A woman and a man are sitting together at a coffee shop in some urban setting. The man looks over and says:
I’m sorry. I was so busy listening to myself talk I forgot what I was saying.
That cartoon has stayed with me all these years because it points to why I continue to meditate every day. Ok, just about every day.
I meditate to take myself less seriously.
Which reminds me of another cartoon that has stayed with me just as long. A Zen monk is walking along a beach carrying an enormous bag over his shoulders that’s so heavy his footsteps are like craters in the sand.
On the bag is written one word – ME.
This is a burden our meditation helps us set aside, the heavy bag called me. Setting the bag down, even for a few minutes when we meditate, lightens our steps and makes us more available to others.
It helps us not take ourselves so seriously we can’t engage in a meaningful conversation without it all being about me.
I first discovered Buddhism in 1979 at the age of 23 and attended my first 10 day vipassana retreat the following year.
And I still take myself way too seriously sometimes.
Some would argue that their burdens are who they are (maybe not exactly phrased this way). They are their struggles. And, if they try hard enough, they are their own victors.
Many of the issues and problems I have faced in my life I was so used to carrying around I didn’t realize they were burdens at all. But when they drop, ah, yes, I feel much lighter now!
Yes- meditation to take oneself less seriously is seriously important.
Meditation has revealed my burdens were mostly imagined. But even imaginary ones can carry real emotional weight.
The more meditation I had under my (imaginary) belt, the easier it was to see we don’t really need all that much to get along happily in this life.
George Carlin once quipped:
That’s all I want, that’s all you need in life, is a little place for your stuff, ya know?
And even that might be extra.
I love Emily Dickinson’s short poem “I’m Nobody! Who are you?” She nails the issue in a few verses and sticks the landing perfectly.
I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
Often I read a poem I am convinced was written just for me!
There’s that pesky makin’-it-all-about-me again.
The poem sings of the beauty of being a “Nobody” in a boring and crass world of “Somebodies.” And then in lines 3 and 4 the poet realizes the reader is also a “Nobody” but says, shush, don’t tell anyone–they might find out.
Which is how I felt when I first started practicing Buddhism, that I had to keep my nobody-ness a secret because anyone I talked about “dropping the burden of self” looked at me as if I were crazy.
Meditation to take oneself seriously
From one nobody to another, I thank you Emily Dickinson for validating what I knew all along when I started on this path, that it’s such a relief to know how to melt the shell of me, and open to the mystery of this life- softly, as in a morning sunrise.
(thank you Dianne Reeves for that wonderful 1994 performance of this jazz standard.)
