The heat from the parabolic space heater feels good on my bare legs. I’m wearing shorts while I meditate. The only problem is my mind is wandering.
Are you surprised? Yeah, me neither. It happens.
And what am I doing instead of following my breath?
I’m thinking about the penguins on the far side of the media room.
Like I said, it happens.
Rather than opt for my prayer bench, I am sitting on one of my friends’ three recliners that face their enormous flat screen.
Sitting in a recliner with an erect spine, a hot cup of coffee in my hands, and the oscillating space heater warming my legs? I may as well have stayed in bed as I’ll likely be asleep in no time.
And spill this coffee on your hot legs? Not smart.
My inner narrator has a point.
Right. Let’s not do that then.
I close my eyes and focus on my breath.
The heater is a few feet away from me, and I’m annoyed that I didn’t center it on its intended recipient of thermal energy: me. Through my closed eyes, I sense a bright orange disk of light, but because it’s not centered, one end of the cycle is darker than the others. This profane lack of symmetry annoys the obsessive in me.
I could get up to adjust it.
Distractions are legion.
If I would have positioned the heater correctly, both ends of the arc would be a little less bright.
Focus, man.
I focus on the light. It’s more interesting to me now. After a while, I notice that my breath has synchronized to the cycle of dark, bright light, and less light cycles. I redouble my commitment to the practice and sink deeper into the calm waiting for me.
The brightness diminishes. I notice a portal of white light appears within the disk. I don’t understand how, but I can hold it steady within the center of my closed eyes.
The portal is a distraction, and I’ve never met one of those that I didn’t like. I’m a gracious host for anything that can pull me from the moment, from the unending, unfair, and absurd condition of human existence.
Distractions?
Yes, please.
But I am here to meditate. I put a pin in the portal and promise to explore it later.
I manage three synchronized light/breath cycles before I remember the penguins.
The penguins. A chrome-plated sculpture of a pair of posed penguins. I assume one is the mother, and the other is its child. They stand near the door: metallic sentinels guarding the place.
Personally, I think they are weird and freak me out.
I open my eyes and scrutinize the penguins. The light from the heater overwhelms my eyes, and they do the opposite of dilation.
What is that? Contraction? Why doesn’t that sound right?
My eyes contract to keep me from being blinded by the light, which casts everything beyond the heater in shadows. The TV to the right is a vague shape lost in darkness and lit only by highlights of golden light.
A bit of light from vented slots in the back of the dome illuminates the penguins as the heater swings left to right, right to left.
The heater is made from black-molded plastic, metal, and heating elements. The inner surface of the dome is a series of concentric rings. Each ring is a string of thumbprint-shaped divots in the metal. The back-and-forth motion of the head creates the illusion of wave patterns crashing together.
More distractions?
Yes, please.
Where was I?
Ah, yes.
The penguins stand in the darkness beyond. Splashes of orange light undulate up and down both, animating the metal birds and leaving me anxious.
Maybe you should shut your eyes? You know and do what you came here to do?
I shut my eyes and redirect my attention to the syncopated breath/light cycles.
I’m always amazed by how much attention I pay to visual stimuli. Even with my eyes closed, as they are now, an entire world consumes me with the perceptions of disks, light and dark cycles, and portals.
The rhythmic sounds from the heater turning back and forth recede into the background. So, when a new sound comes along, it’s easy to notice.
It sounds like something heavy sliding across something soft.
The media room is the only carpeted room in the house.
I open my eyes. Everything is where it should be.
I tell myself I’m being silly.
Are you sure?
I ignore the question.
Are you sure that they aren’t just a wee bit closer to you?
My eyes float to the figures again. If they’re closer, I can’t tell, or it’s not by very much.
How fast do you think chrome-plated flightless arctic birds travel?
I hush the voices, shut my eyes, and attempt to salvage the few minutes I have left in my allotted half hour.
The sliding sounds pull me away from my breath. I tell myself it’s the house settling.
Settling implies moving downward, not laterally.
That feels dubious.
Do you think you can differentiate between down sounds and side-to-side sounds?
I sink deeper into my practice. The ecstasy of piti arises, and I welcome it. It isn’t something I seek for escape. Piti is a baseless bliss, boundless excitement, a pleasure inherent within human nature. It is the stuff of the saints that walk all night with no domain.
I hear more sliding sounds.
Come on, man. You’re an adult. It’s just your imagination.
Also, today is Halloween, and it usually kicks into overdrive because of all the horror movies I watch in October.
My meditation timer goes off.
I did it; I finished another session of meditation.
Wow! Someone is being generous to himself.
It’s true. I was present for maybe eleven minutes.
Bzzz! Try again. It was more like four minutes, tops.
I ignore the alarm, and after a few seconds, it stops.
I feel a spot of cold against my left foot.
I tell myself it’s my foot falling asleep or some diminishment of blood flow to my leg.
I check for tingles and find none.
It’s in the thirties outside. That’s all it is.
But I’m inside, and it’s at least 69, probably higher than that in the media room.
I want to open my eyes and explore the cold spot on my foot, but I don’t dare.
I wait.
The feelings in my foot changes; at first, it was simply a blunt coldness, the hard press of something metallic, perhaps. But it shifted.
The front end of it, the part closest to my ankle, grew harder. But the rear part of it near my toes got softer and warmer. It almost felt like hair.
Which would make the other part of the object what?
I don’t know. Shut up. I am meditating.
My mind reminds me I have much to do today.
Do penguins have talons?
Shut up. Please.
I tell myself to meditate some more, to redeem myself for letting my mind wander. I tell myself that what I’m feeling against my toes isn’t a furry foot. I tell myself to open my eyes and have a good laugh.
I will do that later.
But I’m not sure I have a later now that they’ve started to awaken.
Stories by Shawn 