Sitting With Good Friends

Yesterday was a gorgeous day for sitting in the Temple garden with good friends. The Buddha said the good friends along the way are the essence of the journey. So, as good friends, a small part of our Boundless Way Zen community sat together in meditation in a still-socially distanced circle to express our love and wonder at being alive. We enjoyed the sounds of the waterfall and the wind in the trees mingled with the traffic and sirens and even the racket of a lawn being mowed on the other side of the fence. All together altogether.

The maples that sheltered us with their nascent leaves participated by dropping the blessing of their small green flowers and a squirrel stopped his urgent busyness to sit momentarily still as well. All of us—two-legged seated creatures, green rooted creatures—squirrels, bunnies, worms, and microbes—all living and breathing together. All of us expressing the fullness of life in being and doing exactly who we are.

It was a delight to be in each other’s company, but also weird. I’m not used to the proximity of other humans yet. We kept our distance though we wore masks and the majority of us, I think, have already been vaccinated. An abundance of caution mixed with the urge to be close. We smiled and talked—wandered in the garden—marveled at the daffodils and tulips, the three resident koi and many helped carry the small mountain of branches from a year’s worth of storms from the far back to up near the front parking lot for the wood chipper that will come at some unspecified time.

By the end of two sessions of sitting, walking and a little (masked) chanting, I was exhausted and happy to return to the unsocial bubble of my home with just my partner. We watched some TV, I went back into the now-quiet garden and enjoyed the reverberations of an afternoon with good friends on the way.