Esalen (day nine)

Workshop: There’s a well known author, Jon Kabat-Zinn, leading the medtiation workshop this weekend ~and there’s 63 people ~ a camera crew ~ sound engineers ~ all packed into an enormous tent ~ “IT’S TOO BIG” ~ my brain screams ~ and I think: 1) This workshop is going to suck 2) what a waste of time and money 3) I should have gone to the baths instead ~ then I realize I’m reading from the same script as before ~ so I put it down and sit for a period of silent mediation ~ next, I hear Kabat-Zinn say “Anything I describe to you here is not meditation ~ it will only serve as ‘scaffolding’ ~ enabling you to reach a state of meditation ~ kind of like the scaffolding you need to view the frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel” ~ this makes sense to me ~ too often I feel like I’m caught up building scaffoldings.

Walking mediation: We’re out in the yard practicing ‘walking meditation’ ~ he breaks walking down into 4 stages 1) lifting the foot 2) moving the foot forward 3) placing the foot and 4) shifting the weight from one foot to the other ~ he tells us to try and be aware of each step like that ~ while I’m practicing, I notice that some steps occur simultaneously ~ so I combine ‘placing’and ‘shifting’ into one step ~ place/shift ~ then I notice that the more time I spend placing ~ before shifting my weight ~ the more balanced I feel when I walk ~ however, if I wait to long ~ it becomes placing ~ dragging ~ shifting ~ if that makes any sense ~ anyway, I feel this is useful stuff and continue ~ I notice my head moves from side to side a lot more than I’m ordinarily aware ~ not just up and down ~ and that this side to side motion pulls my eyes along with it ~ tricking me into thinking I’m veering off course ~ and causing my leg muscles to reflexively correct ~ which breaks my stride ~ throws me off-balance ~ and makes me stumble like a drunken sailor sometimes ~ I feel excited about this ‘brilliant’ observation ~ and want to rush out and immediately share it with my physical therapist ~ when I remind myself that I’m in the middle of walking meditation at Esalen ~ my physical therapist can definitely wait.