Meditation, Disgust & Sitting with What Is

I go to a Monday night meditation at a Buddhist center. The format is a 30-minute sit. That’s it. No teaching. No social element. Arrive. Pay $5. Settle on a cushion or chair. Sit in mostly silence with a tiny bit of guidance from the teacher. End. Leave. I love it.

The space is one of those improbable tiny spaces in New York. One room with chairs and cushions on the floor. An altar. Colourful fabrics. Images of many-limbed deities and the teacher who founded the particular lineage. Candles. Fake flowers. And a bathroom. My habit is to arrive early, so I can get one of the few zazen cushions on the floor. I prefer that to a chair.  The ambience is low key, cozy and welcoming.

The past several weeks a new person has been coming. A man whose life, I’m guessing, is not in the best place. When he arrives, he goes into the bathroom and spends some time in there. It sounds like he is hacking up his lungs and spitting. Over and over. I’m glad I live a few blocks away, so I never need to use the bathroom.

At first, I was disgusted. I could feel my body tensing and had to work to keep my face from showing my feelings. Then, last week, as we were meditating, I started wondering what this man was teaching me. About the limits of my compassion. I thought about all the things I didn’t know about his life. I wondered if he had a home. I thought about the irony of feeling uncomfortable with humanness, while at a meditation center. A practice in which we are so often guided to simply sit with what is, to welcome the moment, to be with discomfort.

When the meditation ended, we nodded at each other and said goodbye, as I did with the others present.

Walking home, I noticed in myself a bit of pride arising around that nod and being more welcoming with this man, as if somehow my welcome was a gift to him. Then I turned on myself for being self-aggrandizing. Disgusted with myself. Was I even being welcoming or was I just tolerating?  Round and round I went on the wheel of judging myself. Caught in the spiral that self-awareness can become. I reminded myself to breathe into the tightness in my chest and face. To be with my feelings.

I still don’t love the sound of all the hacking and spitting. He wasn’t at meditation this past week. I hope he’s okay.