Trains

I don’t know what it is about trains but I just love them. We live near the tracks and on calm summer mornings when we’re reading the paper on the porch, we can hear the train whistles in the distance. When my daughter and I go for bike rides, we stop by the restored train depot museum on Main Street. There is an old red caboose on display right beside it. We climb up and have a snack, watching all the cars pass by. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, a train will swoosh by.

Could it be the idea of traveling that makes my heart jump a little to see a train? Several years ago, we went to Europe for our honeymoon and took the train from London to Scotland. There was a quaint dining car with white linens and crystal salt and pepper shakers. We had the most delightful meal watching the gentle rolling hills of the Scottish countryside pass by the window. Little puffs of white sheep grazing along the way. The mesmerizing sound of the wheels clicking on the tracks, the sway of the train cars – it’s entrancing.

I could stare out the window of a train forever. It’s almost meditative that way. Like watching clothes spin in a laundromat dryer. Or clouds float by in the sky. Or the sun set over the ocean. It’s so calming, so soothing, to have your mind just stop for a little. Stop the worrying, the planning, the figuring, the static – just silence and nothing else.

There’s been a lot of talk around our town about meditation lately. Our church recently moved to a more central location in Raleigh and has been getting a little press, especially about the meditations offered daily at lunch and our “One%” program (www.whenonepercent.org). The belief that 30-40 minutes of meditation every day can improve your life, bring peace to your family and make a significant impact on your community. I started meditating about 8 months ago and the change has been incredible. I’m calmer, able to handle tense situations with less drama and generally feel more positive. I love it.

So I notice when my mind is spinning it’s wheels, when I try to figure things out, like how I might handle a situation that has not even occurred, my day ends up being so frustrating. I don’t get done what I had planned, I’m less prepared to handle a spontaneous challenging interaction and in general pretty grumbly. But when I stop, when I listen to the wind, when I meditate, when I clear my head… my, my… how much I accomplish.

My parents bought me a Zen Calendar for Christmas, the ones with a daily quote or thought. There are two that really capture this whole idea:

How can you come to know yourself? Never by thinking, always by doing.
Try to do your duty, and you’ll know right away what you amount to.
And what is your duty?
Whatever the day calls for.
–Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

And this one: Lose your mind and come to your senses. –Fritz Perls

So maybe that’s what I love about trains, clouds and laundromat dryers – the sights and sounds that pull me into a state of complete non-thinking, complete meditation, complete blissful release.

Focus

Why is it that when you close your eyes, food tastes so much better? When we go out for sushi, our whole little threesome family closes our eyes while we're eating, making yummy sounds. Even now, I'm sitting here having a bite of a Twix bar and when I close my eyes, it's the sweetest, most delightful thing I've ever tasted.

I think if I didn't look so weird doing it, I might close my eyes all the time to eat.

That reminds me of a movie, American Beauty. In one scene, the boy takes a video of a grocery bag swirling around in the wind. Blowing up and down, around in circles, like it was playing with the leaves. It's so mezmorizing, watching that bag dancing with the wind.

Sometimes when I'm at a stop light, I'll observe the trees or the clouds slowly passing in the sky. It occurs to me that if I had a video camera taping the leaves fluttering in the trees or the branches swaying and bowing in the wind, it might be the most inspiring video ever seen. The difference, I think, is watching it without distraction. Like viewing it through a tube or from a box. No cars or pedestrians passing by. No horns blowing. No one watching. Just me and the tree. Or just me and a dancing grocery bag.

There is a quote by a zen monk named Cheri Huber. She's this amazing woman - funny, spritely, not at all what I imagine a zen monk to be. (See http://www.cherihuber.com/) Cheri says "The quality of your life is determined by the focus of your attention."

I heard this quote last year but I don't think I really got it until recently. I've noticed that when I'm completely focused on a task, when I don't allow any distractions but think only of what I'm doing, things get done so much faster, so much more easily, with such high quality results.

When I'm driving and completely focused, I can avoid all sorts of potential accidents, I never jerk the car to a stop and never get stuck in an intersection. Same thing at work, it's amazing how much I can get done with so little mistakes.

The most interesting thing about focusing on the present moment, is that my face and body completetly relax. When my mind is spinning endlessly, I'll tell myself to stop, be present, see, smell and feel everything around me right then. The muscles on my face relax when I didn't even realize how pinched they were. My skin feels soft and clear, like there's not a wrinkle in sight. I can imagine what Anne Rice was talking about when she described the vampires as having alabaster skin. Completely flawless. Alabaster. (I love that word!) Relaxed with no anxiety, no stress, no problems to solve.

So, I keep on focusing, being present. Maybe I'll even start closing my eyes when I eat. I mean, really, it doesn't bother me to yoga in the middle of the treadmills at the Planet Fitness. Or drive around with blinking red and green lights strung through my bike rack on my car at Christmas. I notice at I get older that I'm less and less self-conscious. But, that's a separate post.

For now, I enjoy the trees blowing in the wind, the sight of a dancing grocery bag and the bite of a Twix bar.