This morning, I was struck, as I often am, by the perpetual calm of Meditation Guy. Meditation Guy is a regular on my morning bus, and he gets on before I do. He always sits in the back of the bus. He has a beard. He usually wears a hat. He's probably around sixty years old. I think he's married -- he wears a ring, anyway.
He's called Meditation Guy (by me, that is) because he spends the entire bus ride with his iPod headphones in his ears, his eyes closed, and his hands folded together in his lap. No matter what is going on around him, Meditation Guy never opens his eyes. Never. Our bus could crash into a telephone pole, and I fully believe Meditation Guy would sit there with nary a flinch until the ambulance crew came to wheel him away. He's just always there, always still, always exuding this almost disturbing level of calm throughout the whole ride.
Today, I saw the whites of Meditation Guy's eyes for the first time ever. He opened them slightly to throw a look of compassion to the fellow sitting next to him, who was talking very animatedly about the fact rotten ref calls cost the Seattle Seahawks the Super Bowl yesterday. Actually, pretty much everyone on the bus threw a look of compassion at that guy at some point during his tirade, as he was clearly in a great deal of distress over the matter, and even those of us who didn't care one way or another about the Super Bowl still know what it's like when your favorite team gets shafted by a bunch of zebras with whistles. But, somehow, coming from Meditation Guy, that look was the most meaningful for us all. It also had the bonus effect of answering one of my most-pressing questions: Is Meditation Guy aware of his surroundings AT ALL? Actually two of my most-pressing questions: Is Meditation Guy aware of his surroundings at all AND Is Meditation Guy listening to everything being said around him?
Answers: yes, and yes.
Figuring out how he knows when it's time to get off the bus without opening his eyes, however, I suspect may require a thorough reading of the I Ching.
