THE SINCEREST FORM OF FLATTERY

JUNE 2018

I woke up exhausted on Wednesday morning. Yesterday had taken a toll on  my resilience. I was carrying three particularly complicated cases of adolescents struggling with enduring thoughts of suicide and all of whom wanted out of treatment. 

One of three had come into my office together asked for my blessing: “You know exactly just how much I am suffering. I can’t believe that you won’t let me die. If you really cared you would let me kill myself.”

At work, the phone was ringing off the hook and I wondered where the expression "ringing off the hook" came from and I thought I should Google it. Pleasant distraction. But then someone knocked on my door asking me if I had seen the new policy on the allowable alcohol content in shampoo before it be considered an intoxicant and as such contraband. 'Really?" I thought to myself. 'Has some administrator decided that these kids are going to get drunk on frigging anti-dandruff shampoo?' 

I needed to get away from work and find some quiet place to breathe. I thought of going for a walk on my favorite Minuteman Bike Trail from Lexington to Concord. It was too pleasant a day and I worried that I would bump into neighbors and other acquaintances and that then I would have to hear about their children and whether I considered 30 milligrams of fluoxetine to be a high dose. 'JUDGMENTAL YOU,' I berated myself. 'What happened to people doing the best they can and the world being as it is?' It was too hard a battle. I had to leave.

I went home for a cup of tea and then announced to my family that I would head off to the Cambridge Zen Center for a brief sit. To my surprise, my teen sons asked to go along with me. I had been on 5-day silent retreats quite a few times, and they were always curious about my experience with sitting, but they had never expressed any interest other than the curiosity. “Really?” I asked.

“You seem to like it. It seems to relax you,” they answered.

The boys are not the kind of children whose idea of a free summer afternoon is hanging out with their dad, meditating in Cambridge. They are typical boys, robust adolescent males who spend time playing basketball in the driveway, hanging out in the town center with their friends, occasionally sneaking a beer from the fridge and arguing with each other. I noticed a sense of tremendous gratitude as we headed off to Cambridge. They had noticed something in the way that mindfulness had changed me and they wanted to find out more about it and even go to practice with me. “Is there anything particular that we need to do when we get there?” they asked.

“I haven’t been there before but the website says it is a one hour sit. I am not sure as to the format, but unless they instruct in a different way, you will find a cushion and sit cross-legged on it. Keep your eyes open, and find a spot on the ground in front of you. It will be like a mental anchor point.Then you want to simply start noticing your breath as you inhale and exhale. As you breathe gently, not forced, count your breath. You will notice your mind wandering to all sorts of things. This is completely normal. When it does wander you might not even be aware that you have drifted away, but then you will realize that you are in the Zen center, and this in turn will be the realization that you are here to be mindful!  Simply notice that your mind has wandered and go back to your breath,” I instructed them. “But really, you don’t have to worry because there is no ‘right way’ to notice; the moment you are aware that your mind has wandered and can bring it back to the focus on your breath, that moment is awareness and that is mindfulness.”

Not having been at the Center before, it took a few minutes longer than I expected to navigate the one-way streets and then to find a place to park. Anxious to not be late we quickly went in and were instructed to wear robes. I had never worn robes during meditation before. “A new practice,” I thought.  We put on the robes and headed to the hall where we were told to sit only along the side-walls, “but neither in the back of the hall nor the front of the hall.”

There were perhaps fifteen other people in the hall, all sitting in silent pose. The group consisted mostly of older men and women all facing the center of the room, and all with there eyes closed. The teacher sat at the front of the hall with his back to us. I took two blue zafus, the round cushions used in Eastern meditation, and sat in the more comfortable Burmese pose rather than the lotus position that the others in the room were sitting in.  My boys took their cushions and my older son walked quietly across the hall an sat across from me.  My younger son sat to my right.

After fifteen minutes of sitting, my older son appeared uncomfortable in his pose.  This being his first sit, and not knowing what to do, he moved his right leg out in front of him on the floor to stretch. His distress appeared to ease but his left leg must have similarly ached and out came his left leg. Rather than sitting cross-legged he was now sitting with both legs stretched out in front.

I noticed a sense of mortification. ‘Was he violating some sacred practice or rules of the center? Was he being disrespectful?’ came the thoughts.

I tried to make eye contact with him, but he remained seated and staring at a spot in front of him as I had instructed.  I observed my own physical discomfort and reminded myself that discomfort is OK and that it need not consume me. I let go of the discomfort and then looked back to him. Now his shoulders must have started to hurt. He leaned back onto his elbows and soon he looked like someone enjoying a day at the beach.  My younger son was watching his brother later confided in me that he thought his brother’s behavior to be a bit strange. Nevertheless, he too, noticing his own discomfort, did as his brother did and stretched out a bit before settling back into a more formal position. Just before the end, my older boy recomposed and once again sat formally as the master clacked the wooden blocks to signify the end of the session.

I noticed relief at the end of the sitting. I had been so worried that we were going to be kicked out or reprimanded and was grateful that we hadn't been. Then I realized just how attached I had been to them sitting in a certain way and yet was also overcome by an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the experience and I started to tear up. My boys had given up their afternoon to be with me and to sit, or lie, or stretch at the Center. To BE with me. On the way home, they shared their observations of the hour. Even this brief practice had been useful. “It’s just strange that all the world was going on around and no one knew we were in there. It’s just a different point of view. That was cool,” they reflected. 

I left with two strong conclusions. Simply talking about mindfulness or teaching mindfulness skills is not enough. It was the effect that my mindfulness practice had had on my relationship with them, a more thoughtful and reflective connection and they wanted to know more. If you want to be a teacher, be a practitioner too.

The second was more of a note to myself:  My kids are far less predictable than I thought them to be and that in truth, is a wonderful thing.