Embracing the Contradictions

In November of 2020, right around the US election, Master Li Junfeng, with whom I studied Sheng Zhen (a practice related to Qigong) while in Austin, offered an online meditation workshop for – if I remember right – 17 days in a row.

I signed up, even though it was at 6 am Pacific Time, since Master Li was in China and they were trying to set it for as reasonable as possible a time for people all over the world. And I made every class.

It was a very good decision, despite the fact that getting up to do something at 6 am is not one of my favorite activities. I sailed through all the election nail-biting and even lessened my pandemic anxiety.

I did keep it up for awhile, but since then I haven’t been all that regular with meditation. I’m trying to get back in the habit now. What with the election, the multiple climate-change-caused disasters, and the fact that even with sane people in our government we haven’t even come close to dealing with public health crises – not to mention what all this stress does to my blood pressure – I need to take time to breathe deeply and find my center every day.

I do Tai Chi daily, but I need the meditation as well.

I’m a bit eclectic at the kind of meditation I practice. I’ve picked up some Zen Buddhist techniques over the years. Master Li’s approach comes out of Taoism, I think. Some days I just focus on my breath. Other days I watch the Qi or Ki (depending on whether I’m channeling Chinese or Japanese practices) flowing through my body.

Sometimes I recite this verse that I believe I learned from a book by the Zen Master Thich Nhat Hahn:

Breathing in, I feel my body.
Breathing out, I smile.
Living in the present moment.
This is such a beautiful moment.

And sometimes I try to imagine all the elements of our planet – from the tectonic plates to the oceans to the forests to all the creatures and people – and then go on through the Solar System to the Milky Way to the Universe.

When I do that last version, I remember that I am a part of the universe, and so are all the microbes living inside me as well as everything around me.

I am a tiny speck of the universe and whatever happens or doesn’t happen to me is part of that whole.

In one way, that makes me part of something incredible and awesome. In another, it makes what happens to me unimportant. The Universe will still be there no matter what choices I make or what happens to me or even to my country or my planet.

I find that feeling very comforting. It is a way of mattering and not mattering all in one.

I hasten to add that this may not work for anyone else, which is another reason to look into the various ways one can meditate. I doubt there’s one right way.

But I do think we can all benefit from paying attention to our breathing and finding our center, and not just in these troubled times but at any point in our lives.

I am, of course, also a conscious being, and cannot stop being aware of all the suffering on this planet, much of it brought about by foolish and unnecessary violence.

I grieve. I get angry. I want to fix things. Those are all righteous and just reactions. I don’t plan to give them up and I don’t want anyone else to do so.

But it still helps if, just for a short while each day, I remember that we are all specks in the Universe and it will continue regardless.

Life is contradictory. Embrace the contradictions.