I’m pretty sure I’ve never read a story in Dogen about monks hawking loogies while trying to solve koans. Nor do I recall a Christian contemplative seized up in the ecstasy of oneness with the mystical Christ despite an irritating post-nasal drip.
But it had to happen, right? I mean, it happens to me. I sit down to sit. My brain echoes with the deep, melodious voice of my sangha leader intoning, “I breathe IN peace, I breathe OUT love,” and my breath stutters over itself like a rusty go-kart.
I am not feeling mindful. I am feeling resentful.
It’s more like, “I breathe IN dry air particles packed with dog hair and dust allergens so I guess I need to vacuum and get the humidifier down from the attic and hopefully it’s not moldy and what if we have black mold and when will we get the siding fixed on this house and what if this is a sinus infection and that’s why my face feels like an overstuffed bra and tea bags never work no matter what the dumb beauty magazines say, i think I’m the only person in the world who seems to deal with baggy eyes and hemorroid cream also doesn’t work and no one cares and now I’m swallowing more junk.”
And then, “I breathe OUT but god I need to spit this snot that’s somehow coating every hollow space in my head and throat and why do we have so many empty spaces in our heads in the first place and yet it’s so hard to empty myself of thoughts which themselves i guess are empty and also why am I literally gushing with fluid and yet feel so dry at the same damn time and flonase is a joke and I am NOT FEELING VERY MEDITATIVE RIGHT NOW and dang it, it’s time to breathe IN again.”
Meditation is hard. Meditation when you have a cold is ridiculous.
Take a Breather
“Take a breather’ as an instruction to take a break/calm down would indicate that most people find breathing – and just breathing – a helpful way to settle down and relax.
Even without a cold, I’ve often struggled with breath-focused meditation. Maybe cuz I had allergies as a kid or struggle with poor posture? But breathing has never been some easy entry point for me into an internal realm of unfettered calm. The push and pull of air through my body can feel complicated and uncomfortable. (I’m guessing folks with asthma, COPD, and other airway issues have it even worse?)
Bad Breather
First of all, I felt conflicted about whether I was supposed to breathe deeply and properly or whether I was supposed to just pay attention to whatever type of breath I had. Undoubtedly, when meditating with other people, they seem to follow the first style. Their operatic, cave-dwelling inhalations and slow-burn, whale-sized exhalations dominate the air in ponderous, overwrought heft of kabuki exaggeration. Relaxing does not make my breath elongate. When I breathe ‘normally,’ my breaths are shallow, staggered. I notice how uncomfortable my spine can feel and I start to question evolution’s wisdom in stacking our bodies in what feels like an ill-wrought, imbalanced sequence of ascending shapes and weights. I mean, the head is heavy. My ankles, meanwhile, bend and crack like twigs. When I meditate and watch my breath, I’m aware of all the faulty mechanics of my middle-age. And of course, middle age only makes me breath more rapidly.
When I pay attention to my breath, I become acutely aware of all the ways in which I am a bad breather. And guess what? The breath gets even more shallow, quick, and gulpy. Great. Mix in a little head cold, and the effort feels utterly worthless. It’s not even supposed to include effort, right?
Dharma Snot
My point is, no matter the poetic Zen descriptions and instructions about meditation, all clouds and blousy buttercups in idyllic fields, applying mindfulness instruction to the nitty-gritty of a shitty cold gets you closer to the bones of acceptance and presence than when you’re feeling hunky-dory.
It’s precisely when you’re snorting, sneezing, wheezing, and choking wads of green gunk that staying compassionate, curious, awake, aware can break us out of habitual thoughts and rote responses. “This, too,” when the this is a ragged, half-assed gulp of air, if you can really allow it to flower, can create an amazing and freeing intimacy with What Is.
Ridiculous and red-nosed, I face feelings of judgment, inadequacy, limitation. When I can offer myself permission to practice while sick, to stop making meditation a performance, a striving towards accomplishment, a production (it might be one of mucus in this case), how liberating! Too often, especially as Americans steeped in Protestant work-ethic and worth-proving exercises, comparing ourselves to the monks in our minds or the friends in our church or to the people on the next yoga mat, we treat meditation as something we have to WORK at, attack, overcome, battle – well, we’ve completely missed the point, right?
Work With It
The point isn’t to have perfect or even acceptable breaths, to achieve any kind of other, higher state. It’s SO nice when we sit and feel connected to the universe and expansive in our minds and hearts, so nice when we’re peaceful and at ease and adept at letting go of any nagging, invasive qualm or desire that jabs us while we’re breathing. So Nice. But all of it, even the stuffy nose and the puffy eyes, are gifts. The cold, the pain, the discomfort, the failure – it’s all dharma, it’s not something to overcome or dismiss, ignore or decry, but the conditions of existence from which we continue to learn and understand the shape of the present moment’s reality.
Swallow the snot in your gullet. Hawk that phlegm. Blow your nose. Your blessed, holy body in this world continues to be, as Fr. Richard Rohr puts it, “the mediation of the spirit.” The ground of being. The source of enlightenment.
Om – sniffle! – & Amen.
into the park 