When I arrived at Frank’s this morning I realised that I had lost my pen. It was no longer where it always was, attached to my shirt collar. I kind of knew straight away where it was. I had taken my shirt off as I sat in the park 20 minutes earlier. I had eaten my muesli, packed up, put my shirt back on and cycled off. As I rode away I glanced back at the bench with a vague feeling that I had left something behind.
I knew where it was. It must have come off my shirt as I put it back on over my head. While at Frank’s I did not even bother to search my backpack. Instead I practised letting go of this pen given to me at my last Christmas do with the Department. Given to my by a great boss – thanks Robin – that pen always reminded me of the brief time I spent with you and your team – what a fantastic group of people they were.
So over the 50 minutes I was with Frank I kept practising letting go. Letting go of any and all thoughts of disappointment, anger, sadness and loss that came to me. This was good practice – a most wonderful opportunity to practice acceptance. To accept that this is ‘as it is’. An opportunity to simply take responsibility – I left the pen in the park, that is how it is, end of story. No feeling bad, no recriminations, no beating myself up, no “I should of’s’. An opportunity to accept that I have lost nothing as all things rise up and pass away all the time, in their own time. When they do, they do – it is as it is meant to be. To practice trust – that things happen when they happen – life is as it is.
An opportunity to practice taking responsibility and acceptance, trust and letting go – and in doing all that, an opportunity to practice simply being present. Right here, right now, with Frank.
By the time it came to leave Frank’s I was so engrossed in his ruminations on the art of printing some 30 years ago that I felt no urgency, felt even no need to return to the park, to the bench to see if the pen was there. In remembering it I realised I had forgotten about it.
I did however go back., and as I rode towards the park I remembered my meditation that morning. I had sat for about 40 minutes – and all I recall of those 40 minutes is a constant recurring of – thinking about something – realising I am thinking about something – and letting go of that thought. I can not recall any of the thousands of thoughts I had during that 40 minutes – only the process – realising I am thinking – letting go of the thought – and (gently, without recrimination) focussing back on my breath – in and out.
I smiled as I rode – and felt gratitude for this morning’s practice. Those 40 minutes were helping me now, had helped my over the last hour as I became increasingly non-attached to the pen (which I no longer considered my pen).
Of course as I neared the park bench, I saw it – in the grass at the foot of the bench I had left some 60 minutes before. A busy bench in a well-utilised park, right next to a paved walkway upon which a legion of dog-walkers, cyclists, joggers and parents and children off to school passed back and forth every few minutes.
The pen is now once again in my possession. I am, for now, it’s guardian.
I have been wanting to learn how to make things appear. The last month has seen me become rather good at helping things disappear, keys, pens, cigarettes, people – so good in fact that some things were disappearing while I was still quite attached to them. I realised that if I was going to make things disappear I needed to be able to make things re-appear, just in case.
And after today’s little episode with the pen (rising up and passing away and rising up again) it may be that the secret to having something reappear is to let go of it – completely. It seems to me that it was only when I had completely let go of the pen – of any claim or attachment (be it sentimental, financial, emotional or physical) that I had to it, that it was able to appear. We need to accept that once something is gone, it is gone – it has disappeared forever – we may never see, touch, smell, feel and use it ever again. We may never realise it.
I received a letter from Ireland last week. I didn’t get that job I was going for in Belfast. It took about as long as it did with the pen for me to let go of any anger, disappointment, sadness and loss I felt about that.
This is one of the gifts of meditation practice. To release ourselves from those moments of regret, frustration, disappointment, anger, rejection and loss.
To be free of such a moment as the one I experienced with the pen may seem small and insignificant in itself, yet imagine being free of all such moments, whenever they occur and whatever they may relate to. Small and big, pens and partnerships. Imagine a life without those moments – imagine how much more of a life that is. There becomes all this ‘free’ time – time that was once filled with colours and images and words and thoughts associated with anger, resentment, disappointment, sadness is now freed up. Where our minds were once busy, now they are free, empty, available.
What would you do with all that available free time?
x bhavatu sabbe mangalum x
