Recently I was waiting for my teenage daughter while she went to an important appointment.
I had to move my schedule around, just to help her get to the appointment, and miss work that I normally would have been doing at that time.
I brought my laptop with me so I could multi-task and get some writing done while waiting.
I navigated to the local library very close by, knowing I would have easy and free internet connection.
But as I sat at the first big shared table, surrounded by about six people, and began to log-in….one of the people directly across from me at the table mumbled under her breath.
She seemed upset. Like she was actually talking TO someone, but not any of us at this table.
Maybe she’ll be quiet in a minute.
A few more words under her breath, and she stood up with a great huff and went off to the printing machine.
I did my best to ignore her, and it appeared everyone else was ignoring her as well.
The library was hushed and cool in the late summer afternoon.
She returned thirty seconds later though, and continued to mumble under her breath “you can kiss my ass all day long!”
Sigh.
I got up and went to look for another place to sit.
I sat down at another huge table. Only two people, a man and woman, both with laptops in front of them, facing each other at one end.
I sat at the farthest opposite end from them.
For one minute, it was quiet.
Then the woman started saying to her companion across from her that she was having trouble with the itunes download and then couldn’t remember her secret question for her password and then she said her bank balance out loud, like she was checking the statement.
She seemed to say everything going across her mind.
Her friend’s responses were so quiet and low I couldn’t make out anything he was saying.
But her voice was penetrating.
Excuse me, am I actually HERE?
Do you realize I can HEAR EVERYTHING YOU ARE SAYING?
Are there any chairs in this LIBRARY, which should be QUIET, where no one is actually saying everything that runs through their mind OUT LOUD?!!
I stood up, and went farther into the bowels of the building to find someplace where NO ONE WAS TALKING.
Jeezus! Humans!
I watched as I reacted to the thought “these people should stop making noise”.
I suddenly remembered a wonderful meditation teacher I love, speaking about going to meditation retreat and having the same kind of thought.
There she was, sitting with a hall full of silent meditators, and suddenly, the sound of ringing entered the silence.
The ringing paused, and resumed.
What rude person would leave their phone on here, she thought? And why isn’t anyone hunting down the culprit, or asking about the noise?
Turns out, after an infuriating fifteen minutes, she discovered the sound was a cricket.
She started laughing to herself, realizing that when she thought it was a cell phone, she was totally against it….but when it was a cricket, it was fine.
Who would I be without the thought that the people talking were irritating?
Or that they should STOP because everyone knows you should stop talking in libraries?
I notice that everything actually rolls smoothly along.
Noise happens here, even in places where I THINK it was supposed to be quiet….and then this body gets up to move, wonders about this person, then that person…but not very much.
Every sound like an orchestra. These parts louder, fading, very soft.
In listening in my new corner, I hear the back-up beeping of a truck somewhere through the library walls, a father’s voice saying “let’s go kids”, some sort of whirring, feet across carpet, child setting bag on floor, clicks of fingers on keyboard, so many sounds.
Sounds everywhere.
And then the memory “who hears this sound?” which I heard Adyashanti, one of my favorite spiritual teachers, ask himself, and ask others….
….and a relaxation right there, in the library, of not needing anything to be other than it is.
Including sounds coming out of people.
Not needing things to be quiet in order to be happy.
“No matter what state dawns at this moment, can there be just that? Not a movement away, an escape into something that will provide what this state does not provide, or doesn’t seem to provide: energy, zest, inspiration, joy, happiness, whatever. Just completely, unconditionally listening to what’s here now, is that possible?” ~ Toni Packer
Without the thought that things should be quieter than they are, this whole body relaxes, softens.
The world becomes absolutely fascinating, this library of EVERYTHING, all here to be sampled….the sound of what’s here.
Love, Grace