Welcome to Da-da's Walking Meditation #1

As a Friday experiment in abiding spiritual circumambulatory Lebowski-ness, Da-da proposes you try what he calls a "walking meditation." These will be various thought experiments involving simple ideas and exercises you can try on for size during the course of your day, exercises that will hopefully get you closer to those places where your inner unicorn will flourish, or at least stop eating Da-da's roses.

These simple exercises will be easy to remember, and will hopefully go a long way toward bringing you into a better tomorrow, or at least a reasonable yesterday. Sure, removing old ideas takes time, but compared to enduring all the dreck that floats through your regular day, it'll be easy. And like Da-da said, these are an experiment, so relax.

Walking Meditation #1

For this first one, as you're walking around from place to place, on your way to lunch, or stuck at the office, in a class, standing in line, waiting in traffic, exercising at the gym, or whenever/wherever you're surrounded by people, IMAGINE that everyone around you... is a relative.

Everyone's your Aunt Jenny.
Everyone's your Uncle Charlie.
Everyone's grumpy Grampa Fred.

Sure, you might not LIKE all your relatives -- that's nearly impossible, even for Ascended Masters who all seem to to have an embarrassingly inappropriate Uncle Ira -- but try to imagine them as your favorite relatives. Give everyone made-up names, if you want. But don't go so far as to begin adopting total strangers, as you'll invariably wind up in the rubber room -- that's a WHOLE OTHER meditation, and we're not there yet.

Some people may sense what you're doing, look at you and SMILE. Smile back. People are a lot more psychic than you think. Some will understand what you're doing on a level you don't understand, and others won't, but just go with it.

Soon you'll realize that it's nearly impossible to get angry at someone who cuts you off in traffic when you see it was your crazy Uncle Charlie. You won't take quite the same umbrage you took before at the various slights and arrows that typically occur over the course of a modern day when you realize they were done by your extended family. Its also impossible to see people as objects if you imagine they're all related to you.

So, give it a try. Let Da-da know how it goes.

See? You're already taking Lebowski selfies while you abide.