It had not been a good morning. Though the sun was shining, it was bitterly cold. It looked a bit like spring, but the air was decidedly entrenched in winter. I hesitated when looking out at the world. The wind was blowing the detritus from smokestacks at a stiff horizontal. Flags fluttered in taut formation and the Hudson River was ruffled in waves of all sizes. I decided to venture out in spite of it.
At the local coffeehouse, I sat in a seat by the window and soaked in the bright light. My spirits lifted, as they tend to do with an influx of light, and I felt a bit better. The server had given me the wrong cookie – I ordered a Blackout and when I got back to my seat I saw it was a regular chocolate chip. Initially I resigned myself to eating it, but I realized my heart was set on the Blackout cookie – it’s the only reason I was breaking my eating-well streak (ok, mini-streak) – so I went up and asked if I had been given the right cookie. The man said no, and he gave me the one I ordered and said I could keep the chocolate chip one as well. The day was turning around.
I sat and slowly ate both cookies, while reading more about mindfulness and monks. The passage I was on described inhabiting the physical body, and how monks are always completely aware of where the body is and what it’s doing. If they are sitting, they are conscious of themselves sitting, if they are standing they know fully that they are standing. It sounds silly, but how many times do we actually acknowledge and realize what our bodies are doing unless something is going wrong?
I took the idea with me as I left, and focused on the fact that I was walking. My legs were moving – one foot in front of the other like the animated Christmas special says – and I saw the footfalls of my monk-strap shoes. Everything happens for a reason. Across my mouth, covered against the wind in a pink and gray scarf, a slight half-smile appeared, and maybe it showed in my eyes because I passed a woman who gave me the broadest and most genuine smile I’d seen in a while. It was almost disconcerting, in a very happy way, and I thought back to the adage that the Buddha may appear in anyone at any time. If we approach strangers with that in mind, it makes for a much more peaceful existence. I thought it was a fluke, but then I passed another woman whose fuchsia jacket caught my eye. She too had the biggest smile on her face and directed it right at me, as if waiting for a response. I was too shy to do anything, but I felt those smiles and I took them in.
The wind was not so brutal now, even as the temperature was dropping. Fortified by a hot cup of coffee, or the friendly visages of sweet strangers who may or may not have been manifesting the Buddha, I felt the warmth of the universe.
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