Morning. A room with a comfortable couch. THE BODY sits in quarter-lotus position on the couch, eyes closed, breathing slowly.
[THE BODY is present. THE BODY is. THE BODY requires no effort in order to be. THE BODY effortlessly is.]
[Enter THE MIND.]
THE MIND: Hey hey! What’s goin’ on over here? What are we doing? Oh cool, we’re meditating! I know how to do that!
[THE MIND sits down on the couch next to THE BODY. THE BODY just is.]
THE MIND: So yeah so we just sit here and, like, just be, right? We just be present. That’s easy! A little too easy, even. I should probably make some noises and talk to you so you don’t get bored- Crap! I’m meant to be quiet. Sorry about that! Really sorry. God I’m such a klutz. Can’t even keep quiet for a minute.
[THE BODY does not respond. THE BODY is always already fully present, regardless of what THE MIND is doing.]
THE MIND: Not one minute. Not even one minute. Unbelievable, really. How we can’t shut up for even one minute. It’s a real problem. We should really do something about that problem, you and I. I bet if we think about it real hard we could find a solution.
[THE BODY does not move. THE BODY’s energy is fully present, fully felt, here and now, still and silent, without needing to do anything.]
THE MIND: Yep just meditating! Meditating real good. Just like we’re supposed to be doing.
[Pause]
THE MIND: My breath sounds funny. Does my breath usually sound like that? Is that normal? Am I sick? Oh God, I’m totally sick with the coronavirus aren’t I? It finally happened! Good thing I’m meditating, I can make my peace with death now. Oop! No that’s not my breath, that’s just the heater. Phew!
[THE BODY remains still. THE BODY just is. THE BODY’s beingness is totally independent of the activities of THE MIND. THE MIND’s babbling is irrelevant to the situation.]
THE MIND [singing]: Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burnt turns to pass the torch! Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burnt turns to pass the torch! Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burnt turns to pass the torch! [Speaking] God, I can’t get that song out of my head! Fiona Apple, man. What a goddamn masterpiece that new album is. Hey remember that New Yorker article about her? God what a tortured genius that woman is. Isn’t it a trip how she had all those failed relationships with men, and now she’s in like a platonic relationship with that lesbian lady? Hell, most women have probably thought about doing that, to be honest. It wouldn’t even be that much different from a lot of normal lesbian relationships anyway, what with lesbian bed death and all. Oh! Is that really a thing? I wonder if that’s a real thing, or just some homophobic urban legend I heard about decades ago in some conversation and believed ever since? That happens sometimes. Maybe lesbians in long-term relationships have as much sex as other long-term couples do? That’s interesting. We should google that immediately. Actually DuckDuckGo, cuz Google is evil.
[THE BODY does not move.]
THE MIND: Come on, this is really important! Let’s go search for “lesbian bed death” right this instant to make sure we’re not an evil homophobic monster! Evil! Evil, evil, evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burnt turns to pass the torch! Evil is a relay sport when the one who’s burnt turns to pass the torch!
[THE BODY does not move. THE BODY’s simple energetic beingness is fully felt. THE BODY is always present, never absent. Absence is only ever happening for THE MIND.]
THE MIND: Really? Nothing?
[Pause]
THE MIND: This is dumb.
[Long pause]
THE MIND: Okay.
[Long pause]
THE MIND: Okay.
[Pause]
THE MIND: Well, I’ll be in the other room if you need me.
[Exit THE MIND. THE BODY does not move. THE BODY simply is. THE BODY is still. THE MIND is silent. All is well. All is.]
CURTAIN
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
_________________________
Thanks for reading! The best way to get around the internet censors and make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for my website, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, liking me on Facebook, following my antics onTwitter, checking out my podcast on either Youtube, soundcloud, Apple podcasts or Spotify, following me on Steemit, throwing some money into my hat on Patreon or Paypal, purchasing some of my sweet merchandise, buying my books Rogue Nation: Psychonautical Adventures With Caitlin Johnstone and Woke: A Field Guide for Utopia Preppers. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
15 responses to “Meditation: A Short Scene”
Thanks for your work, Caitlyn. Check out Healing From White Yoga medium page that has articles about the commodification of yoga and meditation. https://medium.com/@healingfromwhiteyoga
I like it.
Of course, the mind does impact on the body (and vice versa). This is how you walk about.
I have also found it useful to contemplate the “natural” state of the body, what it does when the mind is not interfering. I think it’s a way of gaining some detachment.
Is it possible to know the body? I haven’t been able to actually perceive the body directly. All I can see is the evidence of the senses, and an illusion created by the mind.
cheers, Glen.
You can carry this idea further. Just like you can allow the body to just be, you can also contemplate the “natural” state of the room you are in, the space around you. The mind likes to include everything in its own domain, not just the body but the immediate surrounds as well. Notice how at the end of the story, the mind goes into the other room.
.
OTHER ROOM: I’m fine, don’t need any help.
.
BTW, I searched for lesbian bed death on DuckDuckGo . Didn’t help.
i fer shoor, Shirl, know parts of my body. i know my colon and my bladder. and i knew well the hangnails i bit off. i got no problems with not knowing my heart, stomach or spleen liver brain. mostly i know the shallow stuff like muscles: what up with that SHOT?!. and my golf swing which is an ungrateful runaway. quit me? i quit YOU?
my fingers for Accordian practices so hated….destiny: polka. sheeeeesh…and my eyes for not liking the sun so much.
the rest of it goes on with the life force, most often denied by humans except for one. Mama. Mama loves baby. Fer shur, Shirl! so. ladies. go have one. know love before you die. we men will give it a try, always trying not to cry. we will try, but if we have to go kill something for food and peel off it’s skin without wasting another bullet for the next one. give us a break and an extra piece of yer love. i get no hope from mankind. i tried. but now i believe it’s gotta be femkind or die-off.
wow! wish i wrote that….hey! wait. maybe it did in my founding hippie movement stqqge in 1955…we were all so oppressd. my sister got kicked out of scholls two times. both in high scholl. she had bad feet. but thaat’s not why. she wore ALL BLACK….one tme as sphthomorees and two week later all RED. i was in college so did not see thelength of the skits. la femme is so free now…kill two and one is Prez. the way they run around on their wives si so crazy daring. woman in my taxi shows me her new Beretta by pointing it right into my face. i go i ly got one face dearie nice gun! down grrrl. thisis real wold so judy tells ma of course and it turns out black is hoody, before it maent sweat shirt part. and “RED excites the boyz.”
shure it even excites me i college 150 miles away from that BS…when I wear it!
so 1956 got better. andevery year sort of until 2001. the new century world order sort of stuck its ugly head up outa da swamp. part of the clean the swamp process….andby 2016 it had clibd up the presidential palacio….and into the Big O (for Oval).
OMG.
hipppies untie! hurry up. we were right, to be imean left. groovy. i always hated meds. or medits, as they we called it.
i just could not sit still, i had to be running from the cops who always seemed to bang the grrrls with their big sticks….on the calves….dont think dirty. grrrls faling over made us so mad. we guys all ran to toke up. we were gonna rush ’em and get our grrrls back frm prison for picnicx in da park. whatre parks for?
but then we were stoned and got lost looking for the police barn.
my mind sorta left me around 1969 and so here i am still wondering where all those sweet hippie chickies went. back to color school?
we were right but all we ever changed was the draft. it was sorta cold in those squattr pads.
oh, here comes my empty bus now. enter at back….if it does not pull awaaaaay!…..wait!
darn.
so i wrote this one instead. my serenity is all worn out.
“LBJ LBJ! how many kids did you kill today?!” That’s the ticket
The mind is never absent.It is obscured by thoughts.Your emotions are the body’s reaction to the thoughts.
Thoughts can be energized by emotion and vice versa.
“Thoughts are like clouds in the sky.
The sky is always there but sometimes the clouds obstruct it”
Paraphrasing someone very present.
Lol…. more coherent and entertaining than my mind when I’m trying to meditate. I tend to visualize my disobedient mind like trying to walk an untrained border collie through a field of squirrels…. sit… stay… SQUIRREL! No, come back! I watch my mind bound in a zig zag pattern and over a hill… eventually to come back… ok now sit… stay… SQUIRREL! No! Bad dog!
I first tried meditating as an exercise assigned by a therapist, and I quickly became frustrated with my inability to follow the instructions. He must have wanted me to experience the frustration first, because he didn’t mention until I complained that the point was not to achieve the ability to think of nothing for 15 minutes, it was to train your mind to achieve the ability to call it back when you want, and focus on what you want.
Studies of the Quantum particle level have shown that The Body does not even exist as we think it does.
Atoms are NOT the fundamental building blocks of “apparent” matter but atoms are made of much more tiny stuff made of NOTHING THERE but a Field of Potentials and energies.
The Body (and everything else “solid”) are not solid at all. They are all wisps of sparkling energy that appear as certain forms made up in our minds but without real form and substance.
The Mind IS present… somewhere (we don’t know where) and somehow (we don’t know how). But we feel and experience Mind and so we treat it as real. That works for most of us. Most of us don’t want to be vaporous clouds of nothing or minds devoid of thoughts and experiences (wherever those come from).
When Body talks to Mind it is an interesting conversation:
THE BODY: “Hey Mind, I’m not really here, you know.”
THE MIND: “I know that. I’m not really here either.”
THE BODY: “So does that mean that we’re both nothing?”
THE MIND: “On the contrary. We’ve both EVERYTHING.”
THE BODY: “You mean I wasted all those years worrying about how I looked?”
THE MIND: “I’m afraid so. But I wasted my time thinking about a lot of useless crap.”
THE BODY: “Guess that makes us two of a kind.”
THE MIND: “Naw. Makes us ONE of a kind.”
I tried to post a bunch of kitty cat emojis, because the mind part of your writing is flat out hilarious, and pretty well true (I don’t think they posted though :/).
Some Bhuddists refer to the phenomenon as ‘monkey mind’. Making your thinking mind become still is like trying to make a monkey in a tree be still. Read that in a biography about Shinryu Suzuki. I found it to be quite true, when I started trying to still my mind in meditation.
“Remember the A La Mode Review” > principia-scientific(.)org
The unreported story of the Open Texas rally at Dealey Plaza, May 9, 2020. We must demand hearings into the WuFlu bioweapon, the safety/efficacy of voodoo vaccines and preempting the draconian contact tracing program.
Ah, the Buddha Ms Caitlin Johnstone is on fire churning out writing at a pace far beyond what was possible by mere human mortals. Please keep them coming Ms Johnstone I cherish them.
As a long-time meditator: fucking awesome! And just a little creepy…how do you know what’s going on in my mind? 😉
lol
For those who, after meditation, want to revisit the mind in the other room, here’s a meditating renegade biologist, with a kindly manner, pleasant voice, and keen mind, giving a clear and concise explanation of where we are, how we got here, and where we may be going. The ostensible subject is the history and philosophy of science, but the social and political ramifications of this information are earth-shaking. Why not give a listen as we hunker down and feel the ground already shifting beneath our feet?