For a little over two hours Friday evening, I felt what it is like to be a stranger in a large, closed-in gathering.
Close to 100 of us gathered for a sit and talk at the Common Ground Meditation Center, and the only exchange I had was with a person of whom I asked a question. As I look back, I am aware that I was fine at the time with the experience, but this morning I am puzzled.
How is it that in a large community that cultivates awareness, no one acknowledged that I was odd, a stranger, a guest?
I arrived early, stood around quietly by myself. At the end of the evening, I was not among the first wave to depart. I am someone who easily and readily makes eye contact. I can say that I was very attentive to a dozen individuals, not one of which reciprocated that awareness in a manner I recognized. None were moved to acknowledge my presence or strangeness. I am amazed that no one acknowledged that I didn’t fit in.
This is more strange for me than a criticism. However, it does raise the question of whether there is something in the practice that actually can cultivate separateness and distance rather than closeness? Is closeness, awareness reserved for members only? Are the illuminati a closed circle?
It is puzzling for me not just that that no one person spoke to me, but that there was little evidence that anyone was wiling to make eye contact, be overtly aware of me, share a moment of awareness. And I was paying attention.
I recently went to performances at the Ordway and Gremlin theaters, and my experience was different. I experienced more interaction, more conversations with those strangers than I experienced at Common Ground. Maybe it is easier to share awareness with other strangers, who are strangers like me.
I am not faulting Common Ground or being critical of all those who shared that evening with me. I am mostly puzzled by what I experienced. I know it is not what I want others to experience in any group of which I am a member. It is a experience I will take back with me to my home Blooming Heart Sangha.
It is also a reminder that it is my intention to live a way of active awareness. For me awareness is not sitting back and paying attention. It is an engaged awareness that reaches out and connects. It is my intention to allow unity, oneness to happen. That doesn’t occur if I simply observe. It doesn’t happen unless I allow the barriers, the separation to dissolve.
It will be bliss when there are no more strangers in my life.