I was sitting in meditation last week, and the dharma reading was about drala, a teaching about the elemental presence of the world available to us through sense perceptions. I had never heard of drala before and am unsure I have integrated the real meaning, but this is what I understood.
Our brains are designed to recognize patterns, so we often experience the world as if we are seeing the same thing repeatedly. Mindfulness allows us to go beyond the words we use to describe our experience by allowing our senses to engage in new ways. Language shapes our understanding of what is real.
My understanding of drala is that in the spirit of mindfulness, we can endeavor to experience a moment as if for the first time. We can smell it, taste it, listen, and look. When we do this mindfully, we allow the object to be its beautiful, fleeting, and unique self for that time.
After listening to the reading describing drala, we entered our second sit. As I settled into my seat, watching my breath, a fly buzzed around my head. The buzzing sound was familiar, as was my habitual response of wanting to swat it to remove its presence from the peace and quiet of my meditation.
The dharma reading inspired me to try something different. As I listened to the fly’s buzz swirling around my head, I was also aware of the turbulence in the air. This tiny being was altering my space with some energetic music.
Then it landed on my nose. Once again, my intuitive response was to push it away. Instead, I let it walk on my skin. How interesting to think that little feet were dancing on me. How interesting to be aware of my large size in relation to the tiny creature who was finding my nose intriguing. I wondered what it was thinking and experiencing as it walked on me.
It came and went, activating my ears and my skin. I still had to dampen my desire to kill it. That brought me to the question of my need to kill as I wondered what harm this flying creature was causing me.
And then another thought arose. Soon after my beloved Chris died, I asked my friend Erik to make a slide show of photographs from Chis’s life. He took several dozen photos and skillfully wove them together with Sheena Easton singing “When He Shines.”
Erik told me a fly suddenly appeared when he started working on the project, and he immediately tried to swat it away. No matter what he did, the fly resolutely circled his head. Erik continued his work and wondered why the fly had come to him. Suddenly, he felt Chris’s presence intensely and decided that Chris had embedded himself in the fly’s body to help him with his project.
Since hearing this story, I have never had the same relationship with flies. When a fly buzzes around my head, if I take a moment for a breath, I say, “Hi, Chris,” and I feel the pleasure of Chris’s presence in my body.
So, I am not sure that I understand what the Buddhists are getting at with drala. Yet, taking the time to experience something outside the constraints of the words and meanings we have learned allows my understanding of reality to be richer, more layered, and more engaging. A word then becomes not just a word but a new experience and relationship with the energy of this wild reality we live in.