When Traffic Becomes Music

The Road to Nirvana

Sitting on a deck in Duck, North Carolina, I was trying to read while traffic moved along the road below.

Then a mower started up somewhere in the distance.

Or maybe it was a tractor.

I couldn’t tell.

The sound grew louder, then softer, then louder again.

Each time it returned, my attention followed it.

At first I thought the problem was the noise.

Then I noticed something more interesting.

Part of my mind was trying to figure out what the noise was.

A mower?

A tractor?

A truck?

If I could identify it, perhaps I could stop paying attention to it.

Then I remembered:

Awareness.

Equanimity.

The sound was already known.

Awareness had done its work.

Now equanimity could do its work.

Allow the sound.

Allow the uncertainty.

Allow the not-knowing.

Something relaxed.

A few minutes later the mower stopped.

Immediately I became aware of the pool pump humming beneath the deck.

The mind had already found a replacement.

And if the pool pump stopped, I could probably find a bump on my skin, an itch, or an unfinished thought to be annoyed about.

The object kept changing.

The process remained the same.

That’s when I realized that the road to Nirvana is probably not a road without disturbances.

The road includes disturbances.

The road includes getting distracted.

The road includes getting lost.

What matters is recognition.

Recognition is noticing where you are.

Recognition is noticing that you’ve wandered.

Recognition is noticing that awareness is already present.

The earlier the recognition, the easier it is to return to balance.

Later, something shifted.

Not in the sounds.

In the listening.

The traffic became one instrument.

The mower another.

The pool pump a steady background note.

The spaces between passing cars became rests in the music.

Nothing had changed.

Yet everything had changed.

As Yogi Berra famously said,

“It’s déjà vu all over again.”

But it didn’t feel like déjà vu.

It felt like now all over again.

This sound.

This breath.

This moment.

Appearing for the first time.

Once more.

And once more after that.