A blue thread rides my slipper.

It’s lost from home, and, dark blue

on light blue cloth, seems happy.

Now I know right foot from left.

I had an email conversation with a young man.  We are worlds apart as the moment would have it.  He wrote lyrically of the deep peace and silence he experienced in his meditations.  I wrote about being absorbed in the mundane bits of life.  He wrote about walking in the deep forest.  I wrote about traveling in a foreign country where people speak a language I don’t.

We are worlds apart as the moment would have it.

Mine is a kind of walking meditation I am doing.  Maybe one could say it’s a tantric sort of practice.

I remember reading a book by Chogyam Trungpa called Crazy Wisdom.  It’s about the philosophy of tantric Buddhism.  There are comparable schools in yoga and other Indian schools of spirituality.  I think of it as the spiritual version of reverse psychology; what’s supposed to be bad for you can be good if handled properly.  So drinking alcohol, normally against the religious code for most serious monks, becomes a tool in tantrism.  Sex works too.  Lightning flung by wrathful and vengeful Gods does not strike the devout monk who skillfully and appropriately partakes in these otherwise flagrant sins.   Maybe we should say it’s like the old Viking maxim: “If it doesn’t kill you outright, then it will only make you stronger.”

I bring up Crazy Wisdom and the lyrical young meditator because I am in China these days.  Teaching Spoken English for this semester.  So peace and tranquil meditations have taken a backseat to surviving and getting my classes started.  Mind you, having said that, Babs and I both sat down for a quiet meditation this afternoon.

My point here is not that one kind of meditation practice – sitting quietly in meditation or some reverse psychology, tantric version of meditation – is the best or better one.  Any form of meditation can be done skillfully and appropriately; any form can be performed so badly that little comes of the meditation practice.

Maybe one could say I am reminding myself that it is the deliberate attention placed on the action that creates a meditation practice.  By that I mean one can cope with living in a foreign culture.  If one does so with a meditational mindset, then one can benefit from it as much as the person who sits lyrically tranquil in the deep forest, eyes closed, attention focused mindfully on a mantra or on the breath.

This isn’t a new concept.  Trungpa got a whole book out of the concept.  It can be seen as a form of Zen walking meditation, e.g. having the same mind while in action that one has while in inaction.

One of my classes this semester is at a satellite campus about one kilometer away from the main campus.  I teach an 8 AM class on the main campus, and I am supposed to catch a shuttle bus over to the new campus for my 10:10 class.  I went to the square in the main campus where I had been told the bus would stop to pick up faculty.  I stood in the rain near a group of faculty who seemed to be waiting for the bus.  Wrong.  They were just good friends who had stopped to talk to each other before wending their way to their next class.  I found myself standing alone just as the bell for the next class chimed out over the campus.  Nothing for it but to walk the kilometer to the new campus and find the right classroom.  I had lots of adrenalin coursing through my blood as I tramped over to the new campus.  I had lots of worry about finding the right classroom in a building where I could not expect anyone to speak any English.  And at the same time there was a certain humorous quality to the moment.  Sort of like the fun one gets of seeing how many balls one can juggle in the air at one time – and adding one more.

As I arrived in class – amazingly a classroom with students still waiting patiently – and introduced myself, my cell phone rang.  It was the Bert, from the foreign teacher office wondering where I was.  “In the right classroom beginning my class.” I said.  He seemed happy and relieved.  I went on with the class. 

I admit, however, that I saw the crazy part of the situation first – long before I was able to see the crazy wisdom part.

Slather on butter.  Nibble.

Semi-sweet orange and

walnuts on the tongue.  Smile.

Boy again even today.

I ate the last piece of my mother’s orange bread this week.  The last piece forever.  Mom doesn’t bake any more, and while my sister has taken up the baking of orange bread, it is not the same.  This last loaf of mom’s bread came from her freezer when we got her house ready for sale.  Over the last many months Babs and I had savored the last few slices.

Orange bread isn’t just the taste for me.  It also comes with stories.  After I had graduated from college, my wife asked me to get mom’s orange bread recipe.  When I asked, mom handed me a note card from her recipe file.  I dutifully copied both of the sides with the ingredients and preparation directions, and came to a small “etc.” squeezed into the last corner on side two.  I asked mom what else the etc. included.  It turned out to be another two pages of preparation and baking instructions.  So much like my life these days.

I woke up from a bad night’s sleep this morning.  I had awakened at the end of every dream during the night, every time I rolled over on my back or my side.  My last dream was the first few minutes on the first day of teaching a new high school class.  The dream was filled with student disrespect and the need – that is to say, my professional teacherly assessment of the need – to establish a proper classroom discipline atmosphere.  When I roused out of sleep after that dream I looked at the clock and realized further sleep was out of the question.

So I can say that I have begun the trip to China.  The body and the conscious mind do not board the plane at OHare until Tuesday morning, but the subconscious mind and the emotions have already begun the adventure.  Thankfully a cup of coffee and a quick look at the newspaper online allowed me to get things back to normal.

As I recount the night and dreams here, I can detect a quiet chuckle from the spiritual corner.  There is a lot about all these anxious preparations, these consciously written task lists, these increasingly minor details that is amusing.  I am glad that part of me does still pause and chuckle while so much is going on at other levels within myself.

Gururaj used to sum up this kind of experience in a wonderful little yogic aphorism:  “Action in inaction, and inaction in action.”  But since we are on our way to China, I should point to the little white and black dots in the yin-yang circle.  Same thing.  In the midst of the hubbub there is always the possibility of tranquility, and in the midst of boredom there is always the possibility of lively gestation.

So back to that last piece of orange bread.  I stole it.  I got down to the refrigerator before Babs knew where I was.  I unwrapped the slice.  I slathered on the butter because as a kid growing up in middle Illinois you always slathered butter on high cholesterol foods.  I savored each bite while remembering the kitchen in which as a kid I used to eat mom’s orange bread before going off to school.  So much for my life in those days. 

The last nibble.  The last crumbs eaten.  The last ever.  Amazing.