Monday, July 27, 2009The Dharma of TravelAs we settle in to being back in "real" life, I'm noticing something kind of sad and possibly important. Time goes by in a blur when one is doing the habitual thing. Days blend into each other. It's like frames of film going by without stopping for a 24th of a second for the eye to register. Life becomes a kind of swooshy blur, rather than a narrative to become engrossed in.When we were traveling I kept a journal and was amazed at how long ago yesterday felt. There was so much packed in to each moment that the days felt long and rich and chock full of goodness. My days now are also good, but I've noticed they don't have that clear definition, that sense of constant wonder, the feeling that this is my LIFE and I'm really LIVING it to the fullest. I think that one of the reasons for that difference is that we notice so much more when we're in a foreign country. Every sense is on full power, listening intently to the announcements on the Metro, feeling the change in humidity in the evening air, tasting the nuances of difference between a Parisian croissant and one from the local Winchell's. For two weeks I was inhabiting my body fully (and not altogether blissfully, due to the accumulation of wedding fatigue, jet lag, and the lugging of luggage). I was tuned in to every sense, in rapid succession, at every moment -- like five radios playing all at once. Not much opportunity to get cerebral and start worrying about what a loser I am for letting my yoga practice lapse. No time for maudlin grousing. There was too much of the world, inner and outer, to experience. And by the time we were ready to pack up and come home, I was ready to stop all that wonderment for awhile. Living that fully attenuated to your senses and the world around is kind of overwhelming. There was a part of me that wanted to just stop and go back to a life where I wasn't constantly marveling at the way the street signs were constructed, the differences in journalistic style, the configuration of the toilet. Travel opens up all the sensory floodgates and everything comes washing in. It struck me, of course, how travel is the ultimate meditation. In meditation we strive to train our minds to stay in the present moment by finding a sensory object to focus upon. In vipassana meditation, that object is usually the breath. It is always with us (hopefully) and always gives us a touchstone to anchor ourselves with. We pay attention to the breath and then notice our our minds always want to veer away into ruminations about the past, or anxieties about the future, causing us stress and fatigue and that sense of numbness that comes when life is passing you by without seeing each individual frame. The trick to recovering that sense of wonder is not to travel more (don't ever tell anyone I said that) -- but to learn how to incorporate that noticing more into our daily lives. As Sherlock Holmes says, I am training myself to notice what I see. Travel gives us the opportunity to notice the entire world constantly. Instead of the film frames going by at 24 per second, travel bombards us with 1000 images per second. It's incredible, and mind blowing, and cannot be sustained. After changing countries several times, I started noticing how different the third day felt from the first. Our tendency is to make things normal. Even in a foreign country, after a few days the mind becomes acclimated and able to file experiences away in safe little files. We can't live with that kind of density of experience. On the other hand, we can't live -- truly live -- without it. Maybe not at 1000 frames per second, but the sweet spot is somewhere between that and a deadened blur. We need to train our mind to notice what we see. Take in the small pleasures of little everyday things. Not letting habits become lost in the gray fuzz of the habitual. Not letting days go by in a daze. There's a lovely graceful place to be, when we live in our "regular" world. It's a place where we are not deadened or numb, but are comfortable and attuned. Where we stop, frequently, and pay attention, on purpose, to our lives. Eating a bowl of cornflakes out of a new tangerine-colored bowl with a summer peach on top, is not that different from marveling at a French billboard. The joy is in the noticing and the appreciating, not in the content itself. The noticing slows life down so we can live it as it's happening. # posted by Katherine Doughtie Nolan @ 8:16 AM  
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