I received a book about meditation and decided to give it a try. As an exercise, I was asked to sit straight for 3 minutes and to … (I just spilled my alcohol-free beer on my desk, sorry for the interruption) … just observe what is going in my mind, without interfering. So I decided to do just that. Since the weather was nice and the entrance door was ajar I thought I would give it a try on the front porch. I left the house, closed the entrance door, sit on the stairs, straighten my spin, closed my eyes, heard the wind whistling, the birds singing, footsteps approaching, the door opening wide and my wife saying “Please don’t close the door, I opened it for fresh air!”. I opened my eye and replied “ok”. I then re-started from scratch. I closed my eyes, heard the wind singing, the birds whistling, a feminine attenuated voice saying “kids, go to have a look at what your father is doing!”. l opened my eyes, opened my book and pretended I was reading. My son opened the door, then closed it and shouted “he’s reading!”. Right, the front porch was maybe not the best place to meditate. Maybe I should go in the forest and sit against a tree like the Buddha did? I stood up and while I ruminated about how hard it was to find even one minute of calm around that house, I headed to the fields and the closest wood. On my way, I briefly considered doing my exercise while walking but then realized that walking three minutes without opening my eyes would be way too dangerous with all these silent bicycles around. Arrived at the wood, I was welcomed by two dogs, barking aggressively from behind a fence facing the wood. The wood being tiny, there was no way I could find a spot out of sights from these two monsters. Next time, I’ll try in the toilets.
