Of Mind and Memory and Tea Trays

Less than ten people stayed after meditation for the midweek dharma talk. With a small group like that, things are bound to be more casual. Reverend Master told some funny stories about back when the order kept milk goats and he served as goat monk. Then the talk veered toward cheese and started to get rather lively.  Once again, I became aware of how close we were to the local gourmet ghetto. At the last possible second Reverend Master swung the conversation away from the approaching iceberg of an extended consideration of the technical aspects of enhancing melting qualities in cheese and invited us instead to contemplate uncertainty.

After the talk was over, I picked up the tray and started to collect everyone’s tea cups. One woman who had been talking a bit excessively during dharma talk was now standing and chatting with Reverend Master like they were at a cocktail party. I held out the tray to collect her cup, doing the smile and half bow that is the local etiquette. She smiled back and, instead of placing her cup on the tray, took the tray from me. Apparently she wanted to collect the tea cups, so I gave it to her.

(The whole smile and half bow thing is GREAT for those of us who don’t do names. I knew Talking Woman, but had no clue what her name was. She was just another one of us older middle aged white ladies. I know my own name and think of all the other females as Mary. The guys are all Paul. Most post-ceremony potluck conversations I have start out with at least one person saying, “I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name.”)

Talking Woman wasn’t completely familiar with the local etiquette, but so what? If you do a practice, your understanding will develop over time. The exactitudes are not important; etiquette is merely a tool for developing awareness. For instance, last week Mary showed me how to turn on the meditation hall lights. Of course I know how to turn on lights, but being shown how to turn them on for ceremonial observances felt like getting promoted in martial arts.

The moment after I handed the teacup tray to Talking Woman, the entire incident vanished from my mind. I petted the temple cat and went to put on my shoes. Mary was putting on her shoes, too, and we had to cooperate to make use of the limited space by the door. The tea tray incident flickered briefly into my mind again. Talking Woman’s behavior was like that of someone used to receiving things from subordinates. It was easy to imagine situations where those kinds of roles played out. It’s funny how much people’s behavior reveals about their background and character, I reflected, and then forgot about it.

I was buckling my seatbelt when I thought about it again. I knew Talking Woman, but from where? It really was a puzzle. It will come to me in time, I thought. These things always do. She was definitely familiar. Mainly, though, I was thinking of goats and cheese and shipping wax.

Approaching the highway on-ramp a few minutes later, she popped back into my head again. This was really annoying! There was nothing I could do about it until I finally remembered. There’s just no conscious way of intentionally remembering something, after all. You either remember it or you don’t, right? Why did I even care?

I got onto the highway. There were shoes and ships; it was night; I had my tunes playing. Then: I’m going to remember this. Not actually remembering, but the knowledge that I am now in the process of remembering and will soon have remembered. Verb tenses don’t even convey the experience! The fire was lit, the kettle was on the hob and the deep was bubbling. The question of Talking Woman was really nagging at me now. Why did I care? Why was I so sure that I was going to remember?

The whole thing unfolded over a 15 minute night drive home. I was playing tunes and thinking about a book I was reading, but the image of Talking Woman’s face as she smiled back at me over a tea tray she almost certainly didn’t want to accept kept rearing its middle-aged head. Where did I know her from? TV? No, it couldn’t be; She wasn’t British and I don’t have a TV. It really couldn’t be TV; it was highly unlikely to be TV. Why was I thinking TV? I let it go again and enjoyed the night drive.

It was TV, I was just going to have to accept that. I could feel the memory approaching. It’s like when you feel like you’re going to have to take a crap soon; I could actually feel the memory starting to emerge. This was not someone I had met in person; I was just going to have to accept that as a fact that some part of me knew to be true, even if my conscious mind was playing catch up.

If it was TV, that means Netflix; Talking Woman was a middle aged white female, and that narrowed the field considerably. What movie had I ever watched in which a middle aged white female smiled the way she did when inadvertently taking the teacup tray from me? I queried my brain.

By the time I got to the highway off ramp near my home, I thought I had the answer. I couldn’t remember the actor or the name of the movie, but I had definitely watched it on Netflix. Once home I was able to find out the name of the movie, look up the IMDB listing and confirm who Talking Woman was. Then I watched the movie again because it really was very well done. Afterwards I realized that if I ever ran into her again it could be tricky. To me she’s that character in that movie, while in real life she’s someone I’ve never actually met.

The mental unfolding of the tea tray incident was rather remarkable. We’re talking about a split second of an interaction which I put behind me as soon as it was over yet still presented some problem that my mind really wanted to be allowed to solve. None of the mental events were particularly volitional and the topic was not of conscious interest to me, but my mind kept worrying away at it like how your tongue feels around the hole a lost tooth leaves behind. The mental sensation of feeling an actual memory coming closer and closer before I actually had it was also quite interesting. It was almost like being able to predict the future, at least in terms of my own mental content;I knew I was going to remember something before I knew what it was I remembered.

House Builder, Thou Art Seen! Well, at least glimpsed.