Mindfulness Community Occupies Buffalo: December 18, 2011

 

The blue skies of Sunday morning gave way to dark and heavy cloud cover in the afternoon and snow flurries gently covered the ground. A few of us rode together from East Aurora, this weekend before Christmas, to Niagara Square. We planned to meet up with whoever else showed for today’s scheduled practice at the site of the Occupy Buffalo movement. We didn't know who would make it to the session or would even want to, given the recent change to more seasonal weather than we'd been experiencing in WNY this winter. 

As we parked the car on Genesee Street, the snow flurries stopped and we saw the clouds open up to allow a few rays of sunlight shine down on our chosen meditation spot. Nine of our  friends from local mindfulness communities-Buffalo Shambhala Group, East Aurora Shambhala and Buffalo Zen Dharma- were huddled together, waiting for us. There we were, one dozen souls or Bodhisattvas, willing to brave the cold for one hour of peaceful meditation in the shadow of Buffalo's City Hall.

Some of us spoke with the few Occupiers present (many leave on Sundays to spend time with family). We gave them a container of homemade Christmas cookies and a few scarves and winter hats. Then we laid out tarps over the snow covered concrete, next to the McKinley monument, a towering obelisk commemorating the assassination of President William McKinley here in 1901. We arranged our cushions and chairs in a circle, facing each other and settled down. Jean, our time keeper, rang the gong three times, we bowed respectfully to each other and began our silent meditation.

As we sat in quiet, a brisk breeze blew from the lake, rippling the tarps and stinging our faces. The sound of cars and an occasional city bus rumbled by on the traffic circle surrounding us in the city center. After a few minutes, I heard the shuffling of feet in the snow behind me. Three or four Occupiers, one by one, came over and silently settled down with us. That was a poignant moment, illustrating the purpose of our session at this location. A few of them stayed with us through the entire session. One young man sat with us without his shirt, despite the bitter cold. Perhaps he wanted to display the tattoos on his back and chest which reminded me of Buddhism's symbolic circle of life. When he got up to leave, he turned towards us and, with hands together, bowed deeply in the tradition of a Tibetan Buddhists.

After twenty minutes of sitting we did walking meditation, making a wide circle around the monument. It was wonderful  to move silently and mindfully in the midst of this urban landscape, surrounded by sounds of the city and the tall downtown buildings. Our walk took us by the encampment of the occupiers: dozens of blue, green and white tents (some decorated with Christmas lights), the geodesic dome someone anonymously donated, and the OWS protest signs with their hand-written slogans. As we methodically traced our circle, we went by one tent where a small dog gave out an occasional bark until the dog's owner would holler for it to stop. A short while later, he’d bark some more. It was, after all, pretty cold out there.  

After another twenty minutes of sitting, Jean signalled the end of our session with a ring of the gong. We all woke from our peaceful awareness and beamed at each other. We all knew that what we'd attempted to do here- what we'd accomplished here- yet could hardly express in words was, as Ray from Buffalo Zen Dharma wrote, "a powerful and peaceful statement of our intent to manifest wisdom and compassion in the midst of trying circumstances."