The Latest from K.C. Walpole & the Gateless Gate Sangha

Greetings:

Thought I would share this because it is a little out of this world. As y’all know, am doing my 21^st MBSR retreat and the newly constructed women’s prison called the Lowell Reception Center. Well, we have not been able to raise the needed amount of money to get mats and cushions. So, I brought in every cushion I could find at the center and toted them down on the motor cycle.  Well, they are all in use and a couple of the inmates that had done previous cycles came in on their lunch break to sit.

   Now visualize this. We have a cold tile floor with cushions. Not a single mat. We sit down on the cushion for periods of 25 and 10. Now again visualize this. There are no light switches in the prison. There are lots of motion detectors that turn the lights off if there is no movement in ten minutes. Now, if there is any movement at all they will key on it and flip the lights on. So, when we are at the 25 minute mark I clap my hands for everyone to stand up. That is when the lights go on. Now this is an awesome power to turn lights on just by clapping hands. Now again, I have just barley clapped only moving inch or two and hardly making a sound and the motion detectors turn the lights on.

  So, think in terms of the stillness in the room with no one moving but just the minds for 25 minutes at a time and I can objectively validate they are not moving because the lights go off at ten minutes into the sit without coming back on till I make the signal.  These kids are doing an awesome job and I don’t know that I could sit as they do with some of the injuries they have from a life on the street as well as being coupled with some of the drama and trauma that is floating around in their heads from yesteryear. Just a thought I wanted to share with y’all. Make no mistake there are a couple in chairs but only a couple and they too are still.