In 1977 I was 26 and had been living in West Philadelphia for a couple of years.
Around that time my friend John -- from my hometown, New Rochelle, NY -- was attending law school at Villanova and we would hang out now and then. He was in touch with a mutual acquaintance of ours who had been living in Boulder, Colorado. This mutual acquaintance of ours had been studying with a certain Tibetan Buddhist teacher.
After a series of co-incidents I found that there was a meditation center right in my neighborhood where students of this same teacher gathered to meditate.
One day I walked the two blocks from 46th Street to 48th Street (near the corner of Baltimore Ave and 48th) and knocked on the door of the Vajradhatu Dharma Study Group.
A pleasant young woman (around my age) answered the door and invited me in. We talked for a while. Not much later we got together again and she gave me instruction in sitting meditation.
I had been attracted to Buddhism for a number of years and I knew that if I ever took the plunge I would probably have to do sitting meditation. I expected it to be difficult and it was.
I mean, it was boring.
The Dharma Study Group was situated in a semi-detached Victorian, typical of the neighborhood -- one building with two homes sharing an inner wall and a front porch. I think it was three stories.
What had been the front sitting room was now a brightly lit meditation room. In the front of the room was a shrine with bowls of water, candles and several other objects neatly arranged. The floor had been refinished to a light natural wood. On the floor were several rows of meditation cushions. Each set of cushions (each sitting place) was made up of a round cushion on flat square mat. The square mat was red and the round cushion was red with a yellow center.
The round cushion was a zafu. The larger flat cushion was a zabuton. You can see a picture here (in blue -- not yellow and red).
--------------------------------
