Unruly Self-Cleaning Meditator

One of the periodic small challenges in my meditation practice, underway since 1991, is sitting with the sounds of my beloved cat, Thelonious, licking herself, which she often seems to do while I'm meditating. I find the slurps and gulps almost unbearable, and confess that I have often hissed "Stop it!" or flapped in her direction the sweatshirt that covers my knees. Then I think guiltily of my meditation teacher, who has never said "Don't yell at your cat while meditating," probably for the same reason Jean Kerr neglected to tell her kids not to eat the daisies.

I've tried at times to treat the noise as just another object of meditation; I've tried to experience the sound as just a sound, without the labels and opinions; I've tried noticing my own discomfort.

Last night I realized I'm going to have to pretend that Thelonious is a fellow meditator on a retreat. I go on one retreat a year, either at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre, or down near Joshua Tree. Quite frequently another meditator is doing something during a group sitting which is annoyingly audible: someone comes in late, after everyone is settled, and unzips her jacket; someone else has a chronic cough; a person some rows ahead sighs lugubriously every ten or so minutes. At one retreat, I sat next to a woman who spent a fair amount of time each day gently rubbing her hands back and forth on the tops of her own thighs. She probably wasn't aware that it made any sound at all, let alone what sounded to me like two pieces of sandpaper being rubbed together. Another time, I was next to a woman who invariably whipped open a notebook five minutes into each period of sitting and began feverishly recording her insights. I once even saw a fellow consulting his Palm Pilot underneath his blanket, the little square of light a beacon to the faltering meditators behind him, unseen by the teachers up front.

These retreats are silent in the sense that participants don't speak to each other, or even catch each others' eyes, so it is not possible to vent dissatisfaction directly. It is possible to write the teachers notes to ask them, for instance, to remind everyone that such-and-such an area is for walking meditation and not for yoga or vice versa. I've written such a note once or twice myself, but would feel foolish writing a note about some small sound like the one made by the woman rubbing her thighs. And since there isn't a teacher at home to whom to write a note ("Could you please request that no one LICK him or herself during the group sittings?"), I am going to have to put up with the unruly meditator who licks herself.