A couple of weeks ago I was listening to one of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Gil Fronsdal, of the Insight Meditation Center in Redwood City, California. IMC is not too far from where I used to live, and I liked to do my group meditations there and listen to whoever was teaching, usually Gil. Now that I live in Mexico, I can listen to Gil and meditate with him and others on the Internet. And, believe it or not, we have a Buddhist center, called Heart of Awareness, here in tiny Ajijic, Mexico.
From HOA.org 
From Facebook.com
Now (I’m writing on April 29, 2020), we’re all stuck at home. So I can “attend” my usual center or a different one online. One day recently, during a podcast, Gil mentioned that because it was garbage day, it was a little noisy. He said that he’d see what he could do in the future. I laughed out loud. I thought, aren’t we supposed to be able to notice the noise and go back to our breath? Besides, the noise in my head seems louder than a garbage truck at times.
But what was so hilarious to me is this—when we meditate at our center here in Ajijic, the door is usually open for air circulation, and just a screen door separates us from the town. Mexico, in case you don’t know, is noisy. During meditation, we hear people, cars, motorcycles, dogs, horses, and sometimes fireworks. Mexico has lots of celebrations, and they all call for fireworks. Sometimes there are so many distractions that we start giggling.
Far from annoying, the distractions are part of the experience of living in Mexico. Consider those meditations in the forests of Thailand (which I have attended only virtually), with loud animal noises all around. That garbage truck made my day; I’m still giggling about it. And I appreciate my unquiet meditation center here in the middle of Mexico.
