WOW it was hard to find Buddhist practice in Wyoming. Of course, the largest city, Cheyenne, only has a population of 65,000. In 1983 I took a Greyhound across the country to see the Grateful Dead and I remember getting off the bus for a break in Cheyenne and getting right back on the bus and hunkering down. Something about my long hair.
Anyway it was a delight to find the Unitarian Universalist Church of Casper Wyoming's live zoom meditation led by 'Buddhist, Stuart Mackenzie.' I was as usual warmly welcomed. "I've tried to stop leading this group at times," said Stuart, "but I keep getting pulled back into it."
All four of us gathered for a recitation of the four immeasurables followed by a fifteen-minute silent meditation.
After that, Stuart discussed a rare instructional Tibetan Thanka of a monk, an elephant and a monkey. In the painting, the practitioner is represented by a monk, effort is represented by fire, and the mind is an elephant. As the monk embarks along the path, first he is chasing the elephant, which is all black (representing lethargy) and is being terrorized by a monkey (representing distraction). Yet as the monk moves forward, guided by the flame of effort, he is able to catch the elephant and it sheds its lethargic tendencies. The monkey can’t keep up. Eventually the monk is able to ride the elephant of his own mind and no longer needs the flame.
I thought about the nonsense, the monkeys in my mind as I was driving this same morning. It occurred to me that all of my planning and worries were quite inconsequential, but the monkeys were so distracting; "If I focused on meditation, such as being mindful feeling-tone vs content, then what would it avail me?"
Well, just peace of mind and insight into the true nature of things.
"But what about the world you've built?" said the monkeys.
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