meditation Archives - Page 2 of 2

Wednesday June 3rd, 2020

I did push-ups, sit-ups and squats this morning, but botched the Japanese count during squats. For push-ups, I did fifty “tricep” style ones on my toes and knuckles on the floor, but remembered to switch to “chest” style for the next ten on the matte, and the last thirty on my knees. For those, I focused on going slower and lower: I struggled with the last few. Since this is my first week back on after a week’s worth of rest, I want to push myself. Evening push-ups are still pretty difficult, particularly in our bedroom. It’s hot and I’m tired after working. For those, my goal is simply to get the numbers in.

I’ve started to read “Zen Flesh, Zen Bones” again. The first time I read it, I lived in Germany as an exchange student. In the evenings, I took a class on Zazen Buddhism, which was taught by my professor for a class on Hinduism. If I remember correctly, he’d recommended that book to me. Each story is a koan, but this time around, they make considerable sense. In one story, an elderly woman supports a monk for twenty years. One day, she sends a young woman to the monk. He resists the young woman’s advances, comparing himself to an old tree on a cold rock in winter, and quips, “No where is there any warmth.” The old woman, angry, burns down the cabin she’d built for him, furious at his lack of compassion for the girl. I’m with the old lady.

During karate class last night, Sensei had us practice a set of alternating blocks with an ending punch. The number of moves was uneven, forcing students to practice the same set of moves on both the left and right sides. This was more of an IKO exercise, according to Sensei.

At the end of class, he had us meditate. He instructed us to envision a peaceful place. I saw Queen’s Bath. Sidi Yu was there: alive, happy, healthy, beautiful. D was there, too. We remarked on how warm the water was, and how beautiful the place: black lava rock surrounded the pool, ringed again by green. Sensei kept us there a full two minutes. My feet started to cramp, so I went up on my toes a couple times. I had not seen that place or that friend in many years.

Thursday April 30th, 2020

I meditated for ten minutes under the loquat tree. I had a view of a dilapidated trampoline, a bougainvillea bursting with color, a stunted kumquat bush, two loquat saplings and foxtails.

A memory of my college mentor and art professor, Don Evans (d. 2013). Both my freshman and sophomore years, I’d taken art classes with him. During my junior year abroad in Germany, he lost his son in an accident.

His son Jonathan was so talented, like his father. He’d built a giant Rube Goldberg machine, mostly of wood, in Don’s studio and both he and Don liked to show it off.

I didn’t know how to talk to Don about his son’s death when I returned. I took another class with him my senior year, and felt I should talk to him about his loss, but didn’t. When I received word of Don’s passing, I sent a letter to his kind wife. She wrote a lovely response back to me. They also have a daughter, who is also an artist and organized events in his honor.

Don’s art collective was called “the Little Marrowbone Repair Corporation.” I’m glad to see his website is still up. He was such a wonderful, quirky personality. He created a clown car, which also served as his art collective’s logo. But it existed, as an actual car and it had a face on it, just like the drawing:

http://www.thelittlemarrowbonerepaircorp.com/

There are photos up on FaceBook. Guess I really have to join. If you go to the FaceBook page for the Little Marrowbone Repair Corporation, you can see videos of his collective’s performance art.

I’d been looking out at my yard and thinking about what Don said: everything could be art. He didn’t separate art and life. How you kept your home, how you live your life, how you cook–all art.

I stayed with his family one summer for about a week in Tennessee. They lived in an old farm house outside the Nashville city limits. Their home felt like art: a funky clock with pictures of family members where the numbers would be showed them reacting to the different times of day. Their kitchen table was a picnic table setup indoors, next to a large glass door looking out at the back yard, which was a gentle stretch of land bleeding into the woods. His “clown” mobile, which I’m sure he drove at Burning Man, was parked in the front.

In my eyes, theirs was such a happy home: full of laughter, art, wonderful cooking, free spirited friends. He had all sorts of friends who showed up at all times. And there, also, was his wife, a warm-hearted school teacher, talented herself, and his gifted children, already young adults my age.

At this moment, I am so heart-broken thinking about the loss of their son, right when he entered college. He was just starting to live out all that promise–their home full of the art that all of them had created: childish art, colorful youthful art, serious young adult art, middle-aged and wise old folk art–all there in that home, around them, and him gone.

Wednesday, April 29th, 2020

Maybe I should make these entries shorter, more meditative.

Today I sat in front of the clover, which is starting to fade from its previous glory. The finch came back. I saw it on the thistle from the kitchen window as I cleaned. While sitting, the big carpenter bee came back, too. No wasps, but sweat bees.

I wonder if I can try and work meditation back into my schedule once I resume doing my exercises.

Yesterday I missed a lot of the Kihon class: it was short and I was late. I caught the end of fifth kyu syllabus. Senpai B taught us to cross with one leg in front. When I learned it a while ago, we’d done the cross with the same leg to the back. Senpai B is a black belt, and my senpai, so I don’t question. I try to learn the correction, but also not worry too much. The shape of that syllabus is there for me. It’s one of the more awkward ones, since we travel. We’d once learned the final back kick as a side kick. That had been a major correction! Senpai B’s correction for the class was more minor: cross, then do the back kick.

I want to put pictures up of the thistle, mallow and clover. Then folks will know what these things are called, and that my yard is overgrown. I love that it attracts so many birds.

My cousin’s son played a looter in a short dystopian film created by his friend, based on the pandemic. It was well done. I should pay her son a compliment!

A squirrel in the loquat tree is making a racket.

Tuesday April 28th, 2020

We will have karate tonight over Zoom, and I did get in a run on the treadmill yesterday.

I meditated for ten minutes in front of the sow thistle and mallow, hoping to see finches. Instead, a yellow and black striped hornet and a large black bee, and several sweat bees wove in and out of my weedy yard forest. I must have watched for several minutes before noticing the white spiderweb, hidden death, stretched out in nearly the center of that tiny paradise.

Today I brought out a translation of the Qur’an and, like a Torah, it reads from right to left. I only got through part of the translator’s introduction before it eas time to write in this journal. I still have a schedule, even during meditation week.

A. Yuesuf ‘Ali, the translator, spoke of what led him to translate his holy book into English. He’d experienced a personal tragedy that he did not divulge, and devoted himself to the work. The idea was one that had been with him for years, and he’d collected materials and notes over forty years. After journeying to Lahore, he shared his ideas with some young friends. His project excited them. They encouraged him to write, found a publisher, a calligrapher for the Arabic text, and a printer. (Note: his name has a “u” with an umlaut that I’m writing here as ue. Not sure how to find special characters yet.)

He wrote his preface in 1934, so between the two world wars, after India’s Declaration of Independence was passed there but before Pakistan’s own Lahore Resolution.

1934 was about three years before my father was born, but my dear aunt, who helped raise me, would have been three years old.

The birds are still singing. Behind me, a squirrel scolded some creature, possibly that cat from yesterday for another squirrel.

Jessica texted: her employer furloughed her from her job this week. I will call her today.

Monday April 27th, 2020

I sat in the back yard and meditated for ten minutes, or at least tried to. When I meditate, I try to clear my mind, listen to and observe nature. A calico cat came walking down the fence. She saw me, stopped, watched as I retrieved a Kleenex from a pocket, then delicately turned around on the narrow rail joining the picket boards together, then headed back from whence she came.

A finch flitted between the giant dandelions and ate seeds. Actually I believe these large weeds are sow thistle. The finches love them.

My daughter came out on the patio and asked me to look over her English homework: identifying prepositions. She had to circle as many as she could find on a page. I told her I was taught that a preposition was, “Everywhere a rabbit could run: over, under, beside, on….” I found a few more with her. Rabbits don’t really run “of,” however.

Today I also plan to run on the treadmill and update this website.

At the moment, I have ten minutes to get ready for work.