My latest professional challenge has been to put together a shrine representing the human senses. I went conservative on four of the five: a mirror for sight, saffron water for smell, a seashell for hearing and a piece of red satin for touch. For taste, I strove for something more imaginative–and lascivious–than a nutritious apple or vitamin-filled squash. So I filled a glass bowl with a generous helping of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups.
In exchange for my shrinekeeping, I enjoy a spare compensation package: food, lodging and 300 bucks a month. I live in a dirty old trailer beached on an alpine ridge about a half mile from running water, and five miles from the nearest paved road. Hearing about my new career track, my friends back East concluded I had lost my mind. Even one of my new Buddhist colleagues confronted me one night. “You have skills,” he observed. “What are you doing here?”
I left New York for all the predictable reasons. My apartment was too noisy, my life too crazy. When I started meditating a couple of years ago, I found it indescribably satisfying and decided that 20 New York minutes every once in a while wasn’t the way to progress. So I bought a car, headed west with no particular destination, and ended up at Shambhala Mountain Center, a retreat run by American-Tibetan Buddhists in northern Colorado, about 110km west of Ft. Collins. There was not much there except fir trees, meditators and cushions to sit on. I stayed.
Now I meditate–or, as they say around here, “practice”–whenever I can. I sit on my pillow, pay attention to my breathing and try to settle my frenetic mind. After four years at Harvard and 10 years in Manhattan, this takes a while. My personal goal is to become as attentive in following my breath as I am in checking my e-mail.
Trouble is, 130 other meditators arrived a couple of weeks ago. They’ll be staying for a month–a long time–and it’s my job to provide for them. I set up four new shrines. I settled the newcomers into their spartan accommodations, scrambled to cope with their various needs. Since these have been abundant, I haven’t done much meditating. Instead, I’m wearing a walkie-talkie–a feature of the military-style radio system we use up here in the mountains to communicate. Banal chatter is now a constant backdrop to my day:
Not so long ago, a few of us on the staff decided to blow off steam by driving down the mountain to the nearest bar, about 20 minutes away. A nice place, not unlike the cozy spots for regulars that you find in New York. The bartenders even have a policy of knocking a dollar off each draft for Buddhists. Still, is this how an aspiring meditant and truth seeker should be spending his free time?
I’ve also noticed recently that I’m gripping my radio quite tightly as I rush from shrine to shrine. It’s just how I once gripped my cell phone as I rushed from office to office in the city. That’s when it hit me. Even here, simplicity has again eluded me. There may be more opportunities to find peace and quiet, but the bottom line is the same. Wherever we are, whatever our state, we carry our lives with us. I still have to learn to sit down.
