Pack Creek Ranch, San Juan County, Utah
Summertime heat wave in progress – dry, windy, 100 degrees.
LESSON LEARNED
Above is a photo of my “thinking chair” – set up on the path to my workspace – meant to interrupt my personal morning rush. Every morning for the past three months I’ve stopped and sat there to drink a cup of coffee and to deliberately think. Sometimes I have an agenda when I leave my house, and sometimes I just sit down and let the pudding between my ears surprise me.
Keep reading below for some notes on what I’ve thought.
“Just sit down and shut your mouth.”
My mother’s voice. Not a request.
“Shut your mouth and sit down.”
A variation.
And my most regrettable response:
“Which do you want me to do first – shut up or sit down?”
I can relate this story to you now because I could get out of the room before she could fulfill her promise:
“If I get my hands on you, I will beat you to death.”
Sitting in my “Stop” chair on Mother’s Day this year, this encounter came to me and was entered into my notebook as “the lesson.”
In the 60’s I entered a Buddhist temple in Japan to study and experience Zen. The discipline included several hours of sitting still in meditation, seeking a condition of mindlessness. Several times I began to hallucinate, passed out, and fell over. The master of the temple explained that I was not cut out for silent meditation and lacked the ability to empty my mind. As a courtesy, I was assigned to rake gravel paths until I could move on from the priestly calling. Sitting still, shutting my mouth, and emptying my mind was not going to happen. “The lesson” continued.
Brain flash – cold March morning – sitting still, mouth shut, thinking:
Aging friends after retirement – spent most of their time sorting through accumulated stuff in garage, attic, basement, and closets – to send to charity. First, they ordered it, then they stored it, then it sat there unused, and finally, they collected the stuff and hauled it to Goodwill.
Solution: Special account at Amazon – order anything you want and have it shipped directly to Goodwill.
May sundown notebook entry: bats and swallows crisscrossing the air snagging bugs. Are they aware of what’s going on? Do they ever bump into one another? Do they ever learn new tactics from one another?
Writing these notes on June 4, the beginning of my 88th year.
A friend stops his truck on the road below my path.
“I see you in your chair every day. What are you doing out there?”
“Thinking.”
“About what?”
“How long it takes to finally understand the value of sitting still and keeping my mouth shut – lesson learned.”