Discovery Buddha

I've been listening to podcasts by Gil Fronsdal from the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City. I have never practiced what I consider "real" Zen meditation even though I have read or listened to many materials by Thich Nhat Han, Pema Chodrom and Joko Beck. I don't think I'm up to the reality of the meditations, let alone the retreats, but I can handle walking meditation and try to practice mindfulness.

I've made a few stabs at developing a meditation practice over the years. I studied yoga at an old-style 1970's center, with orange thick-pile carpet and an actual yogi who visited from time to time from his retreat on Mount Palomar.

Once when I tried to explain my progress with mediation with a teacher, I compared my experience to being how I feel when I play the piano or write or listen to an amazing piece of music like a Beethoven string quartet. The teacher had a funny expression. It took me a while to figure out that for me maybe it was best to stick with music and writing to bring me a feeling of peace and flow and quiet, softened focus -- and not feel too bad about my inability to empty my mind while sitting cross-legged on the floor.

This week I listened to a talk called Sun Buddha, Moon Buddha. Gil explained that the Sun Buddha is eternal and lasts forever. The Moon Buddha lasts only the cycle of a moon. He used this dichotomy to talk about the need to accept the situation and work you are given.

When I listened to the talk I was in the middle of a several day project of writing several discovery motions. For those not familiar with litigation, discovery is the time-consuming process of exchanging information and "discovering" facts about the other party's case. It leads to the delivery of dozens of boxes of documents that need to be reviewed and digested. And when we think someone hasn't given us everything we asked for, we complain to the court in the form of a motion. So that's what I was doing this week. It's tedious and yet pretty important.

So I realized that for this week at least it is my role to be a Discovery Buddha. Applying that label helped me focus better on the work at hand and keep my butt in the chair until I was done.