| | Waldo's Backstory (actual name NathanM): I made conscious choices early in life; time, relative liberty and solitude were/are priority items. I wasn't interested in much else than peace and quiet to unpack my head. I was a wage slave for as long as that was necessary and rather than work my way into everything I worked my way always further out. I've been far away now for many years from the blazing fast pace and dense press of human masses that is any of the concrete and poison gas graveyards most everyone one has confined themselves to. But I feel your pain, I do, so I am coming down from the mountain to get some smog on at a dying planet near you.
Urban jungle puts my meditation in overdrive. After this long in the woods finding original calm, the suffering I note in bold relief everywhere when I mix it up with the 'worldly beings' is intense by comparison. I just want to hand everyone a margarita or something. A pillow.
So, story... some years back, the last time I migrated to the ghetto... I got myself a dirt cheap apartment in the middle of the worst part of town and took on a full load of paper routes. I would get up at 4 am and walk around for 4 hours in the almost stillness of it. At 8 I would be home having my toast while the morning rush went forth. After stretching I would sit in 3 hour blocks for about 9 hours. Two small houses from a busy corner, high school across the street. Screaming neighbors, dogs, relentless SUV's relentlessly revving engines and squealing tires non-stop until just about 4 am. The daily slack tide.
It took about a year of really nasty mostly vipassana cycling and after that I could get the harder than hard jhanas. You could fire a gun next to my head and man, not a chance I would hear it. I stayed and did some more predominantly long hard jhanas for another year within the sirens and gunshots of my zen garden. I'll try a nature hike in our next episode. |