Meditation...?

Ok, so we talked about meditation a little bit in class last week, and we were supposed to try it out. The only problem is, usually my tactic for falling asleep consists of trying to clear my mind and focus on my breathing. Admittedly, I usually let my mind wander, but fall asleep anyway. I thought I would give it a try.
I sat on the couch in our common room, after making sure no one else was in the suite to distract me. I tried really hard to focus only on breathing in and out, but found that my mind wandered. Then I decided that maybe if I thought about the movements of breathing, my mind would be occupied enough but still focused on what I was supposed to be. I managed to do that for only a few minutes. Then I fell asleep (shock). However, I drifted in and out, and for a few seconds my mind was empty and I was only aware of breathing. The realization that I had gotten closer to clearing my mind than I ever had before, however, distracted me from what I was doing, and it was over. Oh well, it worked better than I thought it would.
What I can't understand is how people sit in one position on hard ground for hours while meditating. Are they supposed to ignore the pain that they feel, or are they supposed to be aware of it and accept it? It would seem that this would detract from the ability to clear the mind.

Nabokov

I was reading a few short stories by Vladimir Nabokov the other day, and I stumbled across a striking passage that reminded me vaguely of our discussion of reincarnation and karma. In the story Sounds, the main character makes an observation that reminded me of my own interpretation of the Buddhist outlook on karma.

"And suddenly it was supremely clear to me that, for centuries, the world had been blooming, withering, spinning, changing solely in order that now, at this instant, it might combine and fuse into a vertical chord the voice the had resounded downstairs, the motion of your silken shoulder blades, and the scent of pine boards."

This passage implies that previous events happened in order to bring a specific moment into existence, instead of simply making the observation that things happened in a very particular way in the past, producing this particular result. That is the way that I understand reincarnation- the things that you did as a child, and the things that you will do in the years to come will forever change the future. Although you will never be able to predict or measure your impact on the world, what you do will influence events long after your death.

Buddhism and Babies!

Class discussion on Tuesday prompted me to consider the relationship between the Buddhist idea of non-self and an article that I was required to read for Infant and Child Development. The article addressed the research of Esther Thelen on the stepping reflex of infants. The stepping reflex is present in newborns, and can be evoked by gently stroking the feet on a solid surface- the newborn will move his or her legs in a very organized stepping movement. However, after 2 to 3 months of rapid growth and weight gain, the reflex disappears. Thelen found that by submerging infants from the waist down in a fish tank, and stroking their feet on the bottom of the tank, the reflex returns and the infant steps. By placing the infant in the tank, his or her legs were again light enough (as they were at birth) to lift and step. It was this interaction of environment and individual that produced the behavior. As Thelen put it in her article The Improvising Infant: Learning about Learning to Move, "the behavior resides not in the infant, nor in the fish tank, but in the entire baby-in-context situation." (Thelen, 1996). This dynamical systems theory approach to the stepping reflex applies to the Buddhist idea of self. There is nothing inherently unique to a person, and therefore one cannot be defined out of the context of life. It is only though interaction with the environment and other individuals that the self exists. The environment elicits the response that we call individuality.