What follows is an amalgam of things I heard last week.
A woman asked me to come to her home so we could meditate together. Here’s what’s going on for me, she told me: spasms, pain, restlessness. All sorts of tests but the doctors are no wiser: no diagnosis and no real treatment. I’m loosing control over my body.
We sat in silence for twenty minutes. Afterwards I asked, How’s meditation working for you — is helping at all? Funny you should ask. Worries and pain are all over me, except when I sleep, although dreams are chaotic. But last night, as I was lying in bed, unable to sleep, something happened.
I heard a dog barking, a familiar noise in this neighbourhood. In the past, I’d have been annoyed, wishing the thing would just shut up. But this time, as I listened more carefully, I was able to hear a single bark among the many: it had a beginning and an ending, it occurred just once, never to be heard again. And for a tiny fraction of time, there were no worries, no pain. Just one breath, coming and going. That was something!
“We have only to be still, quiet, and listen, and we will hear the Divine’s symphony.”
~Teasdale, W. (2002). A monk in the world: cultivating a spiritual life. p. 213.
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thank you for this anecdote. I am hearing my dog barking as I read this –
and I immediately let go of my knee-jerk reaction of irritability. This is great.