Meditation, Sunday

Awhile back, a good friend of the Matron's complained, like this: "I feel like I'm in a holding pattern. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for my hair to grow longer, the kids to get older, the income grow bigger. Just waiting."

The Matron loved that image - one's life on hold for the tedious time that hair takes to grow!

And that's how she's been feeling lately. Waiting for the shoe to drop, the ship to come in, the five-year old to wipe his own butt, the winning ticket, the book deal -- Heather Armstrong to drop a comment on her blog! In sum, she's felt she's chasing The Big Stuff (whatever that is) and never catching up.

However, being the commonsensical sort, the Matron understands that the shoe may never drop. Book deal? Well, maybe. Okay, Merrick better damn well wipe his own butt in his lifetime, but other than that -- who knows! She may be peaking, as she types. As good as it gets, right now. Uh oh. That would annoy her!

Hoping to shake Desire and embrace the moment, the Matron attended today's Dharma talk at Clouds in the Water Zen Center, the sangha she and her family frequent (okay, she was the Catholic girl who showed up only at Easter and Christmas and remains one of those Buddhist congregants, appearing on Buddha's birthday or when she's in theological trouble, like now).

Today's topic? Happiness.

The Senior Priest asked this: "What are the conditions you require for happiness? The things, tangible or intangible, that you need? How can you better recognize them? How do you attend to their presence or absence in your life?" The Priest encouraged everyone to be quite specific: can you be happy if you haven't slept? If you're hungry? And so on. She also asked the participants discuss what eluded them: if happiness requires a relationship and you're single, what does that mean?

The Matron, along with everyone else, was forced off her lovely isolationish meditation cushion and required to partake in the dreaded Small Group. This annoyed her, as she had expected the Senior Priest to toss a few pearls of wisdom in her direction, clear up the Desire/can't-live-in-the-moment-problem, and let the Matron sit there and do nothing as her role in this healing transaction.

Instead, as instructed, she told the two men in her group all about the conditions of her happiness, and sometimes, lack thereof.

• Health
• Adequate money
• Order in her household (ha-ha, ha-ha-ha!) This one was complicated, as she suffers from Incurable Clutter Brain Suck and lives with three small children.
  
• Enough sleep and food
• Health and well-being for her husband and children
• Adulation
• Meaningful work -- as in writing and teaching.
  

That's right -- adulation. And she explained that -- now, please, she is NOT proud of this but saying it anyway, because that's sort of her whole internal ecosystem -- she is happiest when people are reading her writing and saying: "Hey, I like that!" OR "Oh, I took away something important from what you wrote." Or, she liked it when people recognized her political work: "Don't I know your name somewhere?" Or someone said: "Aren't you the person organizing X, Y and Z?" Etcetera.

So, the Matron sort of summed up, in front of these lovely middle-aged men, that the things that would make her HAPPIEST were largely externally-driven and required the approval of others. Whether it was writing or political activism or any other arena in which the Matron gets to be the Center of Attention -- well! That makes this egomaniac happy!! She explained that she knew this to be problematic, but well . . . that's the way the Matronly cookie crumbled and she just couldn't help it.

The man next to her took his turn. He took off his glasses, wiped his eyes and said this: "It's been six weeks since my wife died. Every day, I hold a small memorial service for her in our bedroom. Just me, alone. Around 6:30 am, I light a candle and look at her picture. Sometimes I read the last book she was reading. I pray for her, and for our daughter, who just turned 12. I don't know what happiness means anymore. My wife died within four months of finding out she had cancer -- all pain. So I'm sort of at ground zero. You know, we all die. All this - this room, the pillows, the walls, the memories -- will be gone some day. And nobody will remember it. Oh, they might for a decade of even five decades, but considering eternity? That's tough. We can't even remember all of our Presidents. Who will remember my wife?"

Then he cried a little bit.

While the Matron wept.

To insure the Matron's hairshirt fit neatly, the Senior Priest ended the Dharma talk by saying this: "When I first did this meditation, I had a long list of things I needed to be happy, like sleep and food and love. But after revisiting the list, I realized I needed only two things. I went through all circumstances in my mind: illness, pain, poverty, great suffering, facing death. And yes, I need these two things. First, I need gratitude for all that I have in my life that is already making me happy. Coffee! Each meal! My son! Second, I need generosity to help others in their own search for a contented and meaningful life. There's really nothing else."

The Priest encouraged everyone to ask other people to do this meditation, so the Matron asks you -- on your blog or in your heart or here -- what do you really need to be happy? How do you manage the conditions that evade?

And she learned today -- that whole thing about how the Matronly cookie crumbled? Center of attention and all that and she just couldn't help it? Living in the moment is sort of beyond her means?

Not true. She just needed a tiny realignment.

Friends, here's to the moments that make up your one wild and precious life. May you savor and appreciate each and every one of them, even the rough ones.