How to Train a Wild Elephant_ And Other Adventures in Mindfulness - Jan Chozen Bays [41]
Odor can have a powerful effect on our mental-emotional state and behavior. Smells can call up memories and old reactions. For example, the smell of a certain aftershave your father used could make you either happy and affectionate or irritable and standoffish, depending upon how you and your dad got along. Psychologists sometimes use disgusting smells to decondition destructive impulses or behaviors, such as addiction to pornography.
Positive conditioning to smell can be helpful. One reason incense is used in meditation halls is that over time a strong link is forged between the fragrance of incense and a quiet concentrated state of mind. As you enter the scented hall, your mind automatically settles. Monks become so sensitive to smell during long hours of meditation that they can tell when the meditation period is over by the smell of the incense. It changes when the burning tip reaches the bed of ash in the incense bowl.
We can be very alert to fragrance when our mind is quiet and input to the other senses is minimal. One night I was sitting outdoors at a temple in Japan, in the deep dark of the monastery’s forest of giant bamboo. It was the seventh day of a silent retreat. The air was fresh after two days of typhoon rain. My mind was completely still and my awareness open wide. In the silence I could hear a single bamboo leaf softly falling, down, down. Gradually I became aware of a subtle spicy fragrance. It came from the bamboo. I have never been able to smell it since. I will always remember its delicate perfume, and that remembering evokes in me the sublime peace of that night.
Final Words: One of the most subtly pleasurable meditations is to be fully aware of smell, how it changes with each in-breath and out-breath.
32
This Person Could Die Tonight
The Exercise: Several times a day, when someone is talking to you, in person or on the telephone, remind yourself, “This person could die tonight. This may be the last time I will be with them.” Notice any changes in how you listen, speak, or interact with them.
REMINDING YOURSELF
Put a note on your bathroom mirror, just above or below where your own reflection appears, saying, “This Person Could Die Tonight.” Put similar notes near your telephone or in your workspace—places where you’re likely to see them while you’re interacting with others.
DISCOVERIES
Some people find this exercise a bit depressing at first, but they soon discover that when they become aware of their own mortality and that of the person they are talking to, they listen and pay attention in a different way. Their heart opens as they hold the truth that this could be the very last time they will see this person alive. When we talk to people, especially people we see daily, we are easily distracted and only half listen. We often look a bit to the side or down at something else, rather than directly at them. We might even be annoyed that they have interrupted us. It takes the realization that they could die to make us look at them anew.
This practice becomes particularly poignant when the person you are talking to is aged or ill, or when death has recently taken an acquaintance or someone you loved. When the Japanese say good-bye to someone, they stand respectfully, watching and waving until the car or train is out of sight. This custom has its origin in the awareness that this could be the last time they will see one another. How sad we would feel if our last encounter with our child, partner, or parent were flavored with impatience or anger! How comforting if we had said good-bye with care.
DEEPER LESSONS
Although sickness, old age, and death come to everyone who has been born into this world, we carry out our lives as if this will not be true for us or those we care about. This practice helps us break through our denial that human life