One Hour Sit

It was imperfect -- oh my yes -- but I did it. A whole one hour sit -- this time with no kinhin break in the middle. How about that? 

Imperfect for several reasons. First that I wasn't fully engaged in the sit for at least ten minutes maybe more. I was sitting before my Zoom screen, but doing other things on the computer as well such as making sure my Zoom picture was showing up, counting the number of participants in this sit -- less than 40 -- and pulling up an audiobook reading of A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life by Shantideva (c. 800 AD) the text we are studying for this practice period. Once I got that going at very low volume, I settled into my cushion and from the heart called out for bodhichitta, Buddha Mind, Awakened Mind, and compassion. For all sentient beings. Which is our task, if you will, during this practice period and at all times.

Well, one thing led to another. 

I sit in a very confined space. It's our entrance hall, about 5 1/2 feet wide and 7 feet long. I sit on a cushion on the seat of a straightback antique oaken kitchen chair. The laptop is on a metal-framed glasstop garden table, none too stable to tell the truth. There are sunflowers reverse printed on the glass.

There's a full-length narrow window beside the door, a long hand-carved bench from Claudio's Place is against one wall and on it a large number of art and other items are placed; there's an antique oak hall table on which a sculpture of a tree root by a Native (Navajo) artist is placed, a metal three-shelf rack with lots of magazines, a clothes hanging shelf with four hooks and many jackets, on the shelf is an Apache carving of crown dancers, there's a number of large format photos -- black and white landscapes, including an Ansel Adams photo of what may be Kerouac's "Matterhorn" he described climbing in "Dharma Bums", and a photo of an interior room at Pueblo Bonito in Chaco Canyon -- as well as smaller works, prints, paintings, needleworks, and other sculptures. There are three clocks. One of which I can see from the corner of my eye when I sit.

Today, I put up a screen of sorts between my sitting place and the living room. The screen consists three silk khata scarves from Nepal hung from a spring rod across the passageway. The house is largely adobe, and the passage between the entrance hall and the living room is about 2 1/2 feet deep.

So I'm sitting. Just sitting, listening or maybe half-listening to the reading of A Guide to the Bodhisattva Way of Life -- I've read most of it and heard parts of it read before -- and suddenly it occurs to me... So much of the stuff surrounding me is hand-made from natural materials by artists and craftspeople. I started with those silk scarves.

Compassion for the silk worms that spun the silk for the cocoons to house their transformation into silk moths, but most of which do not survive the silk making process. The handful that do go on to lay the eggs for the next generation, most of which do not survive to lay the eggs for the following generation. This has been going on for many hundreds, indeed thousands of years. Compassion, much compassion for these tireless insects whose finest threads are unraveled to make the fibers which are woven, they say by hand, in Nepal, to make the cloth for the scarves which are cut (but not sewn) and block printed with Tibetan Buddhist chants and symbols before being bagged and sent around the world. Compassion, so much compassion. I considered all the people and beings involved in creating these three khata scarves and getting them from Nepal to me in far-distant rural New Mexico. I thought to release all of these beings from suffering. 

On the wall are three needleworks, all done by hand. One is a beautifully embroidered Irish prayer -- "May the road rise  to meet you...", another is a welcome, another is a motto: "Life's greatest treasures come from the heart." With lots of flowers and pretty things around it, a gift from a good friend in town. Each was created by a talented someone, using materials made by others, so many people, some animals (wool) and plants (cotton and linen). And the sculptures, four, all by Native artists, carved from limestone, marble and wood. On and on around the room. As I sat, each of the items I kind of take for granted as I pass through every day is almost certainly the work of someone we know or someone we could know, and my heart welled up with compassion for all of them and for all the animals, plants and stone that went into the works now enlivening our house. "All equally empty, all equally to be loved, all equally come a Buddha." 

Another sit will start soon but I think I'll miss it as I process what happened with this one...

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Note: I didn't make the evening sit, though I looked in on it a couple of times. Again, few participants.