The Monkey

I think and talk about my spiritual journey most every day.

The books I read and listen to and the workshops I attend

all focus on the serenity of the mind observed.

With practice, the monkey if not gone completely will at least be clothed in a red vest, holding a dented tin cup, dashing in his embroidered hat and waiting for the accordion to begin playing before prancing among the crowds to collect his master’s due. His master, the true self. Stardust, waiting to return to stardust.

But the monkey does not know pain, and pain does not ask his permission. The night before my pilgrimage to see my granddaughter in Europe, I woke at 3 AM with a pain at the bottom of my spine that had me up, pacing, pressing my palms into the small of my back like a man trying to hold a door shut. I crawled back to bed at 6, my normal hour, to steal two hours of the three I’d lost.

When I awoke the monkey was in rare form, weighing socks against underwear, ounce for ounce, and staging a small trial over my pill bottles, my doctors calling them prudent, the customs officials of another country perhaps calling them something else.

To this meditator’s chagrin, the monkey was in high spirits, my heart pounding out his rhythm, the whole apartment become a ring, and me the act between two others, packing and unpacking. Let the burglar come. My son secured one free checked bag, and I could not have smuggled a needle and thread past what I’d already stuffed into it or the one I meant to carry on my own back through the airport.

But there is one room in the circus the monkey does not enter. The sheets are washed. The pots hang clean. Whatever he shouts about socks and pills, he goes silent at that door. Some things are already settled, even for him.

There is talk of equanimity. I am a kite in the eight worldly winds. Five counts in, five held, five out. Soothed, the monkey goes quiet. I sit on the suitcase. It zips.