Am I the only weirdo that had frequent dreams about being naked in public? This is how the dream usually goes: I'm on a crowded school bus, or in the last one at the piano on a large stage with 400 people in the audience, when I realize that I forgot to put my pants on. In some dreams I'm wearing underwear and in some I'm not even wearing that. Here's the twist: Nobody has noticed it yet but me and I have to figure a way of standing up and getting off the school bus/stage without anyone noticing that I don't have any pants on!
So here I am at the retreat, presumable practicing mindfulness at every turn. Mindful meditation, mindful walking, mindful dish washing, mindful bathing, mindful scratching of my privates...you get the point. Except I was not really completely committed to this retreat, as you may have already figured out from my previous blog entries. I was checking my email daily, attempting to memorize and learn an Oasis song (Don't Look Back in Anger) and a song by the Blues Traveler (Run Around), not looking at the floor while I was walking, reading my novel at night, and daily phone calls to my BF, all of which were expressly forbidden. So, for me, I wasn't taking the medicine exactly as prescribed. And I really cheated myself out of something. Don't get me wrong, I had wonderful Zazens (the act of seated meditation) and most definitely deepened my practice of meditation throughout the week, but the first three days of my retreat was more a collection of lots of separate Zazen periods, rather than one contiguous silent journey. After the Shuso pointedly pointed out the rules to me (mentioned in a previous post) I came to realize that I really was not fully invested in this retreat and I did change how I approached the entire thing after 3 days. But before that happened...
I woke one morning at the requisite 5:15am (who DOES that??!) and put on my thermal underwear, since I knew that we were scheduled to do outside meditation and it was about 20 deg F. I washed my face, brushed my teeth and put my eyes in. I ran down to the coffee room to jump start my heart with the necessary dose of caffeine before heading into the Zendo for our first morning Zazen. I shed my flip flops outside the door, and walked into the zendo towards the square cushion that I had been assigned to all week. I bowed to the cushion and then to the people sitting opposite me. I sat down on the little 6" high bench I was using and as I was adjusting my legs I realized that I forgot to put on my pants. I was only wearing thermal underwear. So here I was, in a crowded room, the bell had just been rung beginning the period and I realized I was trapped in my underwear in the middle of 60 people that hadn't yet noticed. (Remember, everyone is supposed to be looking at the floor). After an initial moment of horror, and assessing if you could see the outline of my dick through the underwear (you could), I realized there was only one thing I could do...just sit. So I sat. Roshi, the abbot and senior Zen master (mistress?) came around for her morning "inspection", which involves her walking through the four columns of sitting meditators, looking at each one and simply recognizing that we are present. The lights are always very low in the zendo and because it was the predawn hours, there was no sun yet. So because of the low light and the dark color of my long underwear, I somehow managed to pass muster. And amazingly I had a nice peaceful zazen period for the next 30 minutes until the bell was rung and the Jikido intoned the words "Prepare for outside Kinhin (walking meditation)." I knew there was no way I was going to do outside walking meditation in underwear, dark or not, because it was windy and cold. So I quickly exited the Zendo with all the other participants and run up the 4 flights of stairs to my little monk's cell where I found my pants patiently waiting for me. I put on the damn pants, went back downstairs and grabbed my jacket and scarf and managed to join the line just as everyone was moving, wondering if anyone had noticed my nakedness.
[note: Several of my readers have asked me if this was a dream. The answer is, no. It really happened like this.]
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
I, too, have had dreams where I find myself in public places wearing just my underwear or undershirt and sometimes not even those so you are not alone. The place I typically find myself in this predicament is in school. Maybe it's because I felt more open to ridicule and more self-conscious during that time of my life (like many others, I'm sure). And, like you, other people aren't aware of it and I somehow have to remove myself to don my clothes.
Now, for a slightly related but TRUE story, I did manage to wear my underwear over my outside clothes without noticing until I got to work. No, they weren't over my pants, they were on my shoulder. I had been in the bathroom at home with my shirt and tie on and picked up my underwear off the floor and put them on my shoulder so I wouldn't forget to take them back to my room. I finished combing my hair and then forgot the underwear on my shoulder. I put my jacket on, drove to work, and was at my desk when a female colleague asked what that was on my shoulder. I said it was just a cloth and removed it quite abruptly. Now THAT was embarrassing!
Post a Comment