(Photo by miguel pela-yo_ou_voce on Unsplash)
To be clear, this doesn’t have to be a mediation specifically for a trolley ride. It would work on a train, bus, car or any other moving vehicle. I take the trolley regularly and love how meditative the ride can be, so that’s where I use it.
While I work remotely for the majority of the week, some days I commute to my office, now further away due to our recent move. I get a ride in, but coming home means an hour on trolleys in addition to a long walk from the station.
At the time that I leave for home, the afternoon commute is in full swing. I often don’t get a seat on the first leg of my trip, so I stand, holding on to the bars interspersed throughout the car.
My height gives me a good view of the window. Now, if I allow my gaze to fuzz a bit, staring straight out into the distance, the passing landscape becomes a blur.
But this view can also serve as a beautiful way to drop into the ‘here and now’, and also train yourself to let go of the past. As the landscape passes before me, I mentally drop a “plumb line” into it, fixing my gaze every second or so on an object in the passing view, so that for a blink of an eye, my focus is maintained and follows it. Then I let it go, dropping another imaginary plumb, and I fix my gaze onto another spot on the fleeting landscape, again staying with it for about a second before releasing it and focusing on yet another point.
(Photo by hannah cauhepe on Unsplash)
If the scenery very close to the trolley moves too quickly and I tire of the rapid changes, I can cast my gaze a little further away from the trolley where things are passing less frenetically.
Sometimes I switch between points closer by and those further away.
The idea is to allow yourself to let go of the point that you’re looking at, to not get captured by it. The moving vehicle, certainly, prevents that from happening to a great extent, but we also train ourselves to break the gaze and move on.
Why Is This Important?
Imagine that your day is like this: lots of stress, perhaps a lot of work, frustrating interactions with others, so much brain clutter. Can you take a big step back to observe the flow of life, understanding that annoyances comes and go, allowing them to pass by? Just as on the moving vehicle, everything passes and new views appear, so do our emotions and situations. This simple practice reminds us that when times are difficult, we can find solance in knowing that it won’t be forever.
I love this meditation. It combines a return to the present moment with letting go and moving on. What could be better?
Frantic Shanti 