Meditation Is For the Birds

You know how it's easy to get frustrated in summer traffic around here? The place is crawling with people looking for Oaks Bluff or some obscure dirt road in Chilmark or just plain not paying attention to their driving.

It doesn't bother me anymore. And I owe it all to meditation.

A year and a half ago I was a basket case. My marriage had ended suddenly, and my head was filled with a hornet's nest of anxiety, recriminations, shouldas, couldas and wouldas. I was an angry guy. Then I saw an ad in the paper for Dr. Elliott Dacher's meditation class at the hospital. So I came to meditation to quell the anger that had consumed my life, cost me the love of my wife, and had imperiled the love and the happiness of my two sons.

Fast forward to the present day.

I've been meditating for about eighteen months now, have been doing a lot of reading, and like I say, things are different now. I won't try to tell you nothing ever upsets me. It still does now and then, but way less, and I am a lot better at taking things as they come and making the best of things.

Last Saturday I was in Dr.Dacher's second-level meditation class at the Martha's Vineyard Hospital when one of our group shared a story about how she had tried to help a bird crashing again and again against a window at her house. We have all seen this spring time madness and probably have felt helpless to stop it, despite all we have tried to do. We have imagined finding the bird lying dead on the porch outside the window and have felt that anticipated dread.

Not fifteen minutes later, a large blue bird flew into the room where we were meeting and began colliding with the windows seeking a way out. The bird flew into each corner, checked out the recessed lighting, the windows on one side, then the other. Dr. Dacher explained how he had seen the bird earlier in another part of the hospital and had reported it. Somehow the bird had traversed the distance of a five-minute walk and found its way into our meeting room.

As we continued around the room sharing our meditation practices, the bird continued his seemingly futile efforts to escape. One of our group suggested opening a door somewhere so the bird could find its own way out, as we felt powerless to help it, so frantically was the bird careening around, well beyond our reach.

Meanwhile, it was my turn to talk about my meditation practice. So I explained that I am sitting in meditation for thirty minutes twice a day, doing walking meditation twice a day and practicing mindfulness throughout the day. I said I'd learned that happiness was acceptance of what happens, and the anger I used to feel was really resistance to what was going on -- a feeling of powerlessness to impose my will and expectations on the circumstances in my life.

Meanwhile, the bird was in the very highest corner of the room. I could see it had beautiful markings on its wings.

I talked about how I'd incorporated "The Five Tibetans" into the yoga I do before meditating each morning. I thought I could never do The Five Tibetans, that they were much too challenging, but thanks to a class that Fae Kontje taught I had broken through that mental barrier.

But the bird still hadn't broken through its barrier and was resting on a ledge for a moment before launching another sortie.

As I finished up talking about the Lojong slogan "Abandon all hope of fruition" and the decomposed pumpkin I had left last fall at the feet of my garden Buddha, I quoted the wonderful Gary Snyder poem about fixing the leak:

     After weeks of watching the roof leak

     I fixed it tonight

     By moving a single board.

Sometimes it is just that simple and instinctive.

I found myself standing, unzipping and taking off my fleece vest. I moved toward the window to my left, unthinking, just following an instinct I still do not understand. The bird flew suddenly into the Venetian blinds and became trapped between the blinds and the window. I have tried to catch birds before, and have never been successful. They really do not want to be caught and usually escape, but not this time.

I wrapped up the bird in my fleece vest and ran from the room with a couple of other meditators who lead the way to the nearest door and opened it. The bird needed no encouragement. It flew off in a sudden burst without a word.

According to Dr.Dacher, Buddhists call this kind of spontaneous response compassionate energy. 

I will admit that this experience brought tears to my eyes a moment later, not sure why, but clearly they were tears of joy. This is where meditation has brought me, from being an angry, bloated man who drove his wife away to being someone who can without thinking catch and carry a confused, trapped bird to safety and the freedom it was seeking. The gratitude I felt was almost overwhelming.

Have you ever meditated? Does it help in making your life challenges easier to accept? Maybe you think this is all nonsense. Whatever, please share your experience. You may be helping out someone else by doing so.

Dr. Elliott Dacher's Tuesday and Thursday meditation classes still have a few openings left. Please contact Allison in the human resources department of the for more information.