Building Blocks

Where: Hudson River Park, NYC
When: November 9, 2009

I had a dream last night, where I'm in a room with a task. I need to set up a chalk board with several moving parts. I try to do it all at once and fail, I can't get the various sections to support each other, can't establish a firm base. The room is crowded with people trying to achieve the same task, a cacophony of clattering, gestures and conversation.

In the middle I see one young girl sitting on the floor, patiently lifting and lowering one side of the chalk board over and over, with a focus that is both intense and diffused. I sit down next to her with my chalkboard and do the same thing, and feel calm and certainty return in the effort to master one small portion of the task, and I realize that I'm dreaming, and that it is a metaphor for meditation practice.

"I've built a grass hut where there's nothing of value...
Meet the ancestral teachers, be familiar with their instruction,
bind grasses to build a hut, and don't give up."

By Shitou Xiqian [700-790], "Song of the Grass Root Hermitage".

I've been distracted, busy and, most recently, sick the last several weeks, and my practice has dropped off, so I was happy to have a dream reminding me to start again, binding a few grasses at a time.