Meditation in the Face of Uncertainty

I grew up in a small town on the south shore of Massachusetts. My little town made me feel like the world I lived in was a little bubble that couldn’t be popped. Inside the bubble was safe and happy and couldn’t be penetrated by any kind of evil. Since then, I have had the opportunity to explore the world and have been exposed to different people, religions, and cultures. Gaining perspective on the realities of the world is an important thing so that we can move forward and try to change for the better.

Looking at school attacks and gun violence in the US provides a sad reality of our world today. Since the Sandy Hook school shooting in 2012, there have been approximately 142 other school shootings. In 2017 alone there have been 380 deaths caused by gun violence. This sadness and violence only accounts for that of the US. Trying to measure the pain and disaster that the world feels on any given day would be impossible. With this looming sadness existing all over the world taking lives from innocent people it can make life seem like a scary thing.

I contemplated these acts of violence on October 1, 2017. It was the day of the shooting in Las Vegas, and I had gone for a walk before bed. I was walking home, down 58^th street, and found myself with my eyes plastered to a big green construction wall. Sprawled across the wall were colorful posters for a Buddhist meditation clinic, surrounded by tattered posters peeling off the while reading “danger”. The intention of these posters is to seemingly draw people to a meditation class. However, the intention of the person who posted them is unknown. On one hand they could be selfish and hope for more income from the posters. Or potentially, on the other they hope to spread a sense of peace that is needed in today’s world.

 I found myself drawn to this wall. The juxtaposition between the rugged wall and the shiny posters were what originally caught my eye. Then I realized how this wall represented peoples need to escape from the realities of the world. With the words danger on the walls it intensified the emotions that the meditation posters evoked. Even if one did not analyze the content of the wall it was a very appealing view from its intense colors and the difference of the pristine posters and the tattered ones. For the same reason people may attend these classes, people turn towards religion and spirituality. Religion can act as an escape from the world, and gives people a sense of security and consistency. In the book Dharma bums the characters had also turned to religion, as they felt that the rest of the world lived impure lives. Through Buddhism they felt as though they were improving themselves and discovering things about the world. If these posters were seen by Japhy he would be ecstatic that other people were catching on to his message. And perhaps, even in reality, people who pass this poster smothered wall will begin to question their the implications of dance and meditation in one place.