As I was sitting in meditation in the meditation hall, I felt some hairs tickling at my collar where my token kesa brushes my neck. I shrugged it off a bit. It sure didn’t feel like budding enlightenment. A bug? I brushed my hand in the area to sweep anything I found to the floor, and there on the floor lay one of those giant winged Southern cockroaches, probably about 2 inches long, and a bit more with feet and antennae extended. I got up from my cushion, found a tissue paper, and carried it outside and let it go in the midday heat and light. (Those who think their meditative practice is enhanced by letting bugs bite and crawl on them will just have to judge me.)

As I’d been doing walking meditation, I’d seen the critter several minutes ago on the opposite side of the meditation hall slowly crawling its way toward the ceiling. I calculated (very mindfully I’m sure) that its chance of finding me was pretty slim, since it wasn’t heading my direction, and if it moved randomly it had almost no chance of finding me at all. At the end of my walking meditation I returned to my seat and unwittingly waited for it.

I still doubt that the cockroach walked a random path to find me. Perhaps it smelled my footprints. Maybe it noted the warmth or odor of my body or hair. Maybe it sensed a meditative glow I was exuding. (Yeah. Right.) I’ve thought about it a bit since then as an analogy of how seemingly random luck, or unluck, tends to follow some people around. Perhaps what seems random is just a result of traces we’ve left in our wake or what we attract from our surroundings by what we radiate without any means of sensing how we affect other beings or things around us. Perhaps it is always prudent to take care of things when they arise, rather than counting on chance to bail us out.

It bugs me a bit. That cockroach shouldn’t have found me. But it did. For a minute it joined me on the meditation cushion; maybe it was seeking enlightenment too, rather than just minding its business of ordinary daily life.