July 13, 2018
What is the point of this world anyway? I know I am not the first person to consider this question. My eleven year old child is no more. But I am still here. There are people who are a hundred years old who are still here. But there are so many children who come and go from this world within months and years of being born. Were they just unlucky? Are the nonagenarians and centenarians among us particularly lucky? Who is to say that what we do with our lives and time on earth is even meaningful in any way? When there are two buds on a stem and only one of them blossoms into a flower, is the one that didn’t unlucky? Is the sapling that didn’t develop into a tree unlucky?
In order to survive a great loss, we get back to the basics. We hunker down our psyche and just focus on existing. If we set aside the race after transient symbols of power and security – wealth, beauty, ‘success’, all that we are left with is the difference between being and not-being. Whether we are taking a breath or not. Practice of meditation is central to the concept of Zen Buddhism, which is said to have originated in China during the Tang Dynasty. The other day, our guide was describing Tao and Zen. And it reminded me that friends and family have been asking me to try and meditate to improve my state of mind. I have been struggling to look out from the darkness that envelopes me, so that I can truly behold this world, such as it is with all its disappointments, losses and trials.
In recent months, I had tried to jump into meditation by sitting still to quiet my mind. No success at all there. My mind is screaming too much in pain. And it won’t stop screaming. All those thoughts that I am just supposed to observe and then let flit away stay and make me cry. So I had given up on meditation. Then I read a little about Zen and its practice of observing the mind and breath. So I started by just asking myself “What am I feeling?” And I have been doing this three to four times a day. When I am writing, my mind says “Interested.” When I am walking around or doing something else, it says “Sad.” Last night I went for dinner with a friend who brought her ten year old son with her. Zubin had just turned eleven when we lost him. This kid reminded me so much of Zubin – not in looks but in how he still had a little boy voice, how he spoke to her in an affectionate, slightly bossy and dominant way. I missed Zubin so much. When I asked my mind what it was feeling, the answer came back as “Super Sad.” I didn’t need my mind to tell me that. I could physically feel the sadness spilling out of my pores. During these times, I just try to watch my shallow breath. In-out-in-out.. for as long as I have to before I resurface.
Thinking of Zubin 