Thich Nhat Hanh on the Hudson Line

By Jon Berry
I recently began meditating on the commuter train into work. It wasn’t a practice I sought out. But my work situation changed and I'm working in the city again. Rather than give up starting the day with 15 minutes of silence, I decided to see if meditation is transferrable. It is.

While my preferred meditation spots are still my screen porch – where, this time of year, I can look out onto tulips, daffodils, and forsythia, and hear the whistle of birds – or a worn, wooden bench in my Quaker meeting, the “Hudson Line meditation center” carries its own, idiosyncratic benefits.

Putting down the newspaper, tuning out the Blackberry, and turning within, in the midst of a crowded train of rustling newspapers, tap-tapping keyboards, and muffled conversation, has given me a glimpse into things that are obvious to an outsider, but are easy to lose sight of when you do them every day. That I’m in motion. That I’m with other people. That, when I stop my busy-ness, I can see and hear more, and feel grounded -- even when going 60 m.p.h.

I’ve also found anew how porous the boundary is between the spiritual – that great force that breathes life into us – and the rest of life.  In the meanderings of the mind that often accompany the first phase of meditation, my mind wandered one recent morning to an upcoming business trip to California. I thought about what I planned to say in the presentations I’d be giving…then about what was most important to say…then about the issues my clients are facing…then about the human consequences of their companies' success or failure.

This led to thoughts about the people I’d be seeing…how a colleague with small children was doing, and a colleague who grew up in China under Communism and was now here and working for my company…about what a strange and wonderful world we’re living in today. I thought about whether I’d be able to visit a friend whose son has been struggling. I remembered I’d be flying over Indiana, and thought about whether my 82-year-old Dad would be out on his 50-year-old tractor on his centuries-old farm – and I smiled. Then I came back to breath, as always, after my thoughts have carried me momentarily away, and recentered into my meditation.

This idea that the spiritual is always hiding in the non-spiritual parts of our lives is what Thich Nhat Hanh is getting at in the idea that “a dandelion keeps our smile.” The most mundane parts of life, he says, can bring us into “profound communion with life.” Hanh, whom I've been reading on the ride in, writes about waiting in the airport and washing the dishes, but it could as easily be the commuter train or a staff meeting.

To Hanh, spiritual practice begins with breathing and smiling. Like the little revelations that come when we focus consciously on what we’re doing, it’s a deceptively simple idea. We all breathe. We all value moments of joy. This may seem like Buddhism Lite – something Hanh gets occasionally dismissed as. But in context of the practice of engagement in the world that the Vietnamese monk advocates – the “inter-being” that led him and other monks out of their temples during the Vietnam War to attend to the victims of bombings and strive for peace – it is the most serious of spiritual work. I love this quote from his book Peace Is Every Step:

“Our smile affirms our awareness and determination to live in peace and joy. The source of a true smile is an awakened mind.”

I love the words he chooses – “determination” is such a fierce word; the linking of smiles with “an awakened mind,” the decision to live in peace and joy.

If we don’t cultivate a practice of being conscious of our presence in life, the fact of life is like the wonders of the Hudson River that fly by while our noses are buried in the newspaper – there, but not there.

***

“Real strength is not in power, money or weapons but in deep, inner peace.” -- Thich Nhat Hanh

To learn more about Peace Is Every Step, or to buy a copy, please click on this link:

http://www.amazon.com/Peace-Every-Step-Mindfulness-Everyday/dp/0553351397/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1208692878&sr=8-1

For more on Thich Nhat Hanh:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thich_Nhat_Hanh

http://www.plumvillage.org/

Comments

[kate]

as i learned from my teacher Sharon Salzberg, meditation is the surrender to a practice, the beginning again, and again, that first intention of going there, not about the place or depth or circumstances, it can be found in every step.