The Fly

I was sitting this morning and a fly kept landing on me and walking around. It is challenging on a normal occasion to keep focused on the breath and not on external occurences. A fly presents a much greater challenge. Truth be told I did not do very well. I started by making small movements to try to frighten the fly away. That worked the first time. But the fly came back. My next small movement did not scare it away. Next I tried turning my head toward the fly and blowing on it. It worked! Once. But the fly came back and no longer seemed intimidated by my breath. So I lifted my arm out of the mudra and flapped it up and down. That also worked...the first time. But the darn fly came back. After a couple of variations of this same flapping I started to realize that this fly was more stubborn than me, and if I was going to continue to sit I would need as different plan. (You can see how well I was doing at focusing on the breath and not the external occurences...) My new plan was this: focus on the fly. So it landed on my folded left leg. And - though it tickled like crazy - I focused my awareness on the fly's movement on my leg. That fly stuck with me through the last half of my sit, an unexpected companion.

It certainly was not as focused a sit as when your awareness is on your breath, but it was fulfilling in whole new ways - I let a fly walk all over me and yet I stayed sitting. That is big growth from when I began sitting, when a stray hair falling on my arm would have caused me to give up for the morning.