Ease (even when causing a ruckus)

We have a Thursday Night Meditation session in a very public space, used by the Theater & Dance students.  Our little space is called the Rehearsal Room, and it's just up the stairs from the Costume Room, which can be as active as a bee hive.  The Costume Room is ground zero.

But at 6pm when we sit, most people have finished classes and are off having supper or finishing up the day's activities.  

Beneath the open windows of the zendo, we can hear people coming and going, voices at varying pitches, murmuring like water in a stream bed, with the occasional burst of extreme vocal energy!  In that case, water meeting boulder.

We can hear emergency vehicle sirens, the whistle of the train that goes through campus, rustling of leaves on a big tree just outside the window.

Like our thoughts, these sounds come and go.

We are learning how to note them and release them, without fuss, without drama, without getting hooked.

We Practice.

Last night's sit was unusually quiet, until someone, a VLP (very loud person), stepped out of the Costume Room into the hallway, and met with the unexpected.

"Man!  What the hell is all this stuff doing here!  Someone threw their backpacks on the floor, and there are shoes all over the place...Whose shoes are these?   Someone's I.D.!  Look at this shit!  What's going on?!?"

Absolute silence! 

And then, just as loudly, "Oh, Yeah!  I forgot!"  (I could imagine someone inside the shop saying something like, "Oh...they are meditating...")

Silence again.

And then, clunk, clunk, clunk down the stairs.

Clunk, clunk,clunk up the stairs.  

Slam of the shop door!

Absolute silence!

We caused a ruckus, even while just sitting, exactly as our Small Mind would like to do.

Then we created ease, and we found space for Big Mind.

Our meditation continued.

A grin came to my face, my scalp tingled as it does sometimes when I sit.  

The yelling student was like a whack to my bent shoulder blade with the Head Monk's Kyosaku stick!

Gassho!