Bodhidharma of the Opera

So, I'm quietly sitting with my Zen group on Tuesday night and, as usual, everyone is being very serious - it's all about being Enlightened and other very serious stuff so there isn't alot of shouting out. Sort of the opposite of the Black Church experience, but still a valuable experience as far as I'm concerned.

We normally congregate in the upstairs chapel of the First Unitarian Church in the Back Bay and on Tuesday night there usually isn't much happening at the church. Since we Buddhists are all focusing on what we're all making up in our heads, we generally don't want to be distracted by what other people are making up, and the lack of interruption in the quiet church works well.

So, we're all sitting there being intensely quiet and someone starts practicing on the big organ downstairs. They aren't practicing something like Bach; it's something more modern by way of Andrew Lloyd Webber. But we're all trained Buddhists and we know how to ignore stuff, so we all dig in to ignoring the music that's coming literally out of the floor of the Chapel. We manage to do this for a short time until one of our number starts to lightly snore. She was lying on her back meditating and eventually got a little too deep even with the music going.

But, I'm good. I don't break out in laughter as I want to. I don't know, meditation with the group these days sometimes makes me want to laugh. I don't want to trip up people on their way to Enlightenment, but I have to admit that I find all this pretty funny. Maybe for me Enlightenment has a large dose of Henny Youngman. I'll have to check with Josh Bartok, my friendly local Zen priest.

Comments

[gmoke]

I want
the Dalai Lama's
laugh,
that full throat rumble
straight from the Buddha belly
free
and smooth
as a strong stream
moving
big rocks
inexorably.
I want that laugh
and the wisdom
to let loose with it
often.