Tea Party

Voiceless One has no mouth, sits slumped and defeated with closed eyes and arms crossed. Valueless is good friends with Voiceless. They sit together against the back wall of the room. Valueless is fat, likes fried dough, white bread and white sugar. Unwanted One shakes with cold. He can't focus on anything, he's preoccupied with keeping his body still, wants to be somewhere else anyway; he's restless. Passionate One sits on one knee, has a fevered look, her eyes burn with intensity and desperation. She is aggressive, ready to pounce, take over, alert, in a little toddler body. Rejected One has a head bigger than her body. She has to lie down with support behind her head to raise it enough to see the others. When she is upright, her hands need to support her head. If not her hands, she's always looking for someone to hold her head up for her. Rejected One lives in the past and she's been around at least 50 years, sometimes she goes to the Future. Invisible One is withdrawn, sallow, breathes shallow, sits in the shadows between the open closet doors. Excluded One is in terror, looks comatose, white, thin, withdrawn, tightness about the mouth. She sits by the open door.

There we were this morning, all of us, having a cup of tea. Crowded together, I thought my friend Sam, if he only knew, he could help. When I saw him downstairs, he said no without me asking, his eyes glazed over. I went back upstairs. We moved outside. After a while, Valueless ate and ate, relaxed and fell asleep. Voiceless enjoyed the wind and walked, no longer slumped. Unwanted One walked barefoot and felt connected to the earth. Everyone found his/her place. No one left early. Things as they are.

"...meditation should reflect a mentality of richness in the sense of using everything that occurs in the state of mind. Thus, if we provide enough room for restlessness so that it might function within the space, then the energy ceases to be restless because it can trust itself fundamentally. Meditation is giving a huge, luscious meadow to a restless cow. The cow might be restless for a while in its huge meadow, but at some stage, because there is so much space, the restlessness becomes irrelevant. So the cow eats and eats and eats and relaxes and falls asleep.

Acknowledging restlessness, identifying with it, requires mindfulness, whereas providing a luscious meadow, a big space for the restless cow requires awareness."
From the Myth of Freedom by Chogyam Trungpa.