Meditation and Banana Pancakes
Almost since I can remember, I’ve been gifted or cursed, as the case may be, by the ability to achieve a totally mindful state when I’m concentrating on something. I literally become, to use a Buddhist term, ‘one’ with whatever has caught my attention, to the exclusion of all else, no matter how clamorous.
I first became aware of this capacity at age six. I remember being snapped back to my surroundings, a Formica topped table ringed with children, by a substitute teacher, who smacked me on the head with one of those fat pencils designed for tiny hands.
I’ve drifted through life for more than half a century, behaving as though the world is basically a large impressionistic painting, hoping enough of the details register through these episodes of selective attentiveness (read: fogs) to keep me out of trouble. This does not always happen.
In one of my worst experiences, I was in my Prius, on the way to drop some letters at the post office, listening, in my defense, to a riveting episode of NPR’s “Serial.” I pulled to a stop midway between lanes of parked cars about the time Adnan was arrested. My Prius died its eerie hybrid death—with which, after driving this car for more 110,000 miles, I am well familiar. I got out and walked in a stupor to the bank of mailboxes a short distance away. The task of sorting the letters reclaimed my attention at about the time my car mustered its reserves of battery power and began to rumble, driverless, across the parking lot.
I gasped, threw the letters in the air and sprinted after it. Thankfully, a 2004 Prius and a middle-aged woman who jogs regularly are a fairly even match, and I overtook the car, even as, alarmingly, it gained speed. Since I had not only left the car running and in gear, I also left my car door open, I hurled myself at the driver’s seat, conscious as I leapt that I could easily end up in the emergency room. In one of the universe’s small gifts, I managed to land in the car, however, and slam on the brakes exactly—I kid you not—a quarter inch from another car’s bumper.
Thus, I recently took up meditation, confident I’d be excellent at it. Also, in a stroke of relationship genius, I reasoned that I might adapt my practice to serious talks with John. He would talk about the dreaded ‘us’ topic, while I remained in semi-silent zen state of detached emotion.
I tried it for the first time on Saturday morning. John was in the bedroom putting on his socks. His hair was wet; his face was shiny. I walked in, sat down in front of him and said in a tranquil voice, pausing to allow for the present-moment effect, “I have a question for you to consider this morning, John. Would you rather talk about our relationship, or would you rather eat banana pancakes?”
John’s lips instantly pulled together to make the “B” sound. Then he caught himself and looked wary, like a clever cat trying to avoid a trip to the vet. He thought for a long minute, cutting his eyes left and right. I sat with my hands folded in my lap and my ankles crossed. I tried to exude waves of benign love.
“A better question,” he finally said, “is would I rather talk about our relationship or chew off my own leg.” A bit harsh, yes, but I smiled benevolently. I exuded more waves of benign love. Another minute or two passed, and then he tried a different tactic: quibbling with semantics.
“You don’t really mean ‘rather’ do you? Isn’t that the wrong word? I can’t answer that question, if it’s about what would I rather do. In this moment I’d rather eat banana pancakes, but it’s like asking me to chose whether I’d rather take care of my immediate hunger or my future. I can’t choose between the importance of the present and the importance of the future.” He had a smug look, like a defense attorney who’s just nailed his closing argument.
I breathed in and out, in and out. I said, “You’re thinking too hard about it. It’s a simple question: Would you rather talk about our relationship or eat banana pancakes?” I breathed in and out, in and out. I imagined us in a cloud of loving kindness.
John sat for a long time with his arms crossed in front of him. Now he looked less like an attorney and more like a eight-year-old confronted by a forced choice: Either apologize or you do not get to eat dessert.
He’s being really stubborn, I thought after more minutes had passed, and let this thought drift away on an imaginary river. It was a totally unfair, terribly timed, mean question, I thought, too, and let this thought drift away. I’m pretty sure guilt and meditation do not go together.
Finally he raked a hand through his hair and said in a resigned tone, “Alright. What do you want to talk about?”
“I want to eat banana pancakes,” I said, unable to keep a hint of triumph out of my voice. I walked into the kitchen and began rummaging around for the griddle.
About an hour later, John was sitting at the bar, downloading, of his own volition, Brene Brown’s free online course, The Anatomy of Trust. We’d had an 18-minute conversation unlike anything that has taken place in the almost seven years of our relationship, in which John, mainly, had talked, and I, mainly, had listened in a determined state of good will and non-judgement.
There was a bit more to it than that, but let it suffice to say I was amazed, truly amazed, at the power of listening with total acceptance. And here’s where it was, for me, an exercise—listening without allowing my own thoughts, even empathetic or analytical thoughts, to form as John was speaking. I just listened. And he really talked. The simplest things often make the most sense, don’t they? How often do we, figuratively speaking, smack each other with our own fat-pencil agendas, when we could learn something very important by creating a space in which a person we love can exist and speak freely?
It has made a meditation believer out of me: I’m up to almost ten minutes a day, which is a very long time to sit cross-legged, trying not to think about all of the things I should be doing. But I recommend it, even my casual version of it, and I also recommend the book that got me started, 10% Happier, by Dan Harris.