When I meditate, I like to think about all the things that are happening right that second that I don’t know are happening but will later hurt me. This is known in meditation parlance as staying “in the present,” “in the moment,” or, because I do it while breathing deeply in and out, which focuses me, “in the breath.”
When I do this, I know that I have prepared myself for whatever fiasco is surely making its way to me. I will face the impending misfortune with calm equanimity rather than agitated reactivity or ego-driven self-pity. I will not say, as so many do when the bad thing happens, “Just when I thought things were going so well!” or “What the hell?”
In other words, I expect the unexpected. This state of thoughtful preparedness is known as mindfulness.
As I sit in tranquil repose, I make an orderly mental list of events that are probably transpiring in that moment:
Diseases
• I have an infectious disease. But I don’t know it, because it is the kind of infectious disease that is undetectable until moments before you die, in a sudden, violent paroxysm, greenish foam trailing from a corner of your mouth. In my case, this will probably take place in public—say, outside the Dunkin’ Donuts on Thirty-Fourth Street, near Penn Station. No one, including my children, will go near my body, which public-health workers in hazmat suits will bury in some potter’s field in Queens, my cold hands still clutching my Caramel Apple Croissant Donut.
• Someone is spreading a rumor that I have an infectious disease, even though I don’t, and no one will ever ask me over for dinner again.
• I have some other disease, also as yet undetectable. It is not infectious, but eventually my face will be covered in unsightly sores, and there go my dinner invitations.
• I have an undetectable disease that is not infectious but everyone thinks it is, and bye-bye dinner invitations.
Weather
• A squall is brewing right now over the ocean near my home. By the time it arrives at my property, the storm will have grown into a full-blown twister that will lift the roof off my house and deposit a flock of disoriented seagulls and a barge’s worth of slimy seaweed onto my head.
Escaping Pets
• The seven llamas down the street from me, kept by my peculiar neighbors as pets, have escaped from their pen and are making their way to my house. They will devour my lawn and terrorize me by spitting at me and biting me with their sharp “fighting teeth.” This episode will be written up in the local paper in a lighthearted way, and I will be kidded about it by townspeople for the rest of my life.
Odorless Gases
• Odorless yet toxic gases are presently being released from the polluted ponds in the wetlands that surround me, slowly but surely laying waste to the brain cells of all local residents, resulting in psychosis.
Mistaken Identity
• At this moment, someone at the IRS is preparing an audit of me, only it’s an audit of someone who has stolen my identity and is passing herself off as me. IRS agents will show up at my door, dismiss my protests, and arrest me, sending me to prison in Louisiana, where I will be put to work on a chain gang and die of sun poisoning.
As I work my way through my list, of these and so many, many other possibilities, I can feel my body and mind achieving the state of calm abiding that is meditation’s greatest gift.
I accept whatever is about to befall me, knowing that bad fortune is, after all, ephemeral. It will pass, as surely as water flows through a riverbed, replaced by some different, probably worse misfortune, such as when the river overflows and floods your basement and destroys your brand-new furnace, which cost $23,000. Serene in my readiness, I add it to my list.