Four Customers, Four Ways to Meditate, and a Pair of Shoes Nobody Came to Collect

— You're sitting wrong.

Cô Loan said it while her hand was still on the strap of her cloth bag, her foot not yet out of the sandal I was meant to glue. I was on the low stool behind the repair table, hands on my knees, eyes on a wooden shoe last lying on its side, and I thought I was doing fine. Four minutes later I understood that I had just received the first of four different pieces of advice from four different customers.

I have repaired shoes at this corner of the market for twenty-two years, and I am fifty-eight. Three weeks ago my nephew sent me a three-minute recording on how to sit in meditation and told me to try it so my head would quiet down. I tried it after lunch, when nobody was around. By evening the whole row knew. This is a market. If a man sits three minutes doing nothing, everyone sees it within nine seconds.

Since then every customer who hands over a shoe adds a line beyond the glue: you should sit like this, you should breathe like that. No two agree. Each one made sense when I heard it, and put the four together they don't fit. This is about what I did with those four pieces of advice, and the places where I still don't know.

This isn't about deciding who is right. All four were telling me honestly about what helped them, and I'm not going to rule that one way beats another. What I want to say is narrower: a beginner who hears many voices tends to carry one of them along, and that voice doesn't leave your head when the three minutes end.

Four instructions, each pointing a different way

Cô Loan is a retired teacher, sixty-three, who comes to the market every morning on a bicycle with a basket. She told me to count my breaths. One to ten, then back to one. If my head wandered mid-count, start over from one, no penalty. She said it with certainty, a ballpoint pen still clipped to her shirt pocket as if she were about to grade me.

Tín was the opposite. He is a delivery rider of twenty-five whose sneakers split at the sole and come to me every two months. He said: don't count anything, sir. Just listen. Whatever sound comes, let it come. Motorbikes, hammering, me, anything.

Chị Diễm works in an office across the road and breaks her heels often. She said to close my eyes and picture a place that feels comfortable: a path along a rice field, the light of a kitchen lamp, anywhere. She said that in such a place I'd have a smell, a light, a spot where I could stay a long time.

Bà Ba, who sells sticky rice, didn't bother hearing me out. She stood by her cart, opening a banana leaf, and said: I can't sit, me. I wrap rice real slow, real slow, one leaf at a time, watching the steam rise. That's sitting already.

Four people, four directions. Counting, listening, picturing, slowing down.

I decided to try each one for a session and see which fit. Nothing grand. Just how my trade works: when a customer offers two kinds of glue, I test both on a scrap of leather before deciding.

For counting, I sat behind the table, hands on my knees, phone set for three minutes. One. Two. Three. Four. At four the smell of glue on my fingers came up, I thought of the leather pair still half done on the table, and that was that. Back to one. One. Two. Three. I never got past seven in the whole three minutes. When the time was up, I felt like a pupil who had marked his own test wrong.

Listening, the next day, was easier than I expected and also messier. A motorbike horn pulled me away, then the lottery-ticket boy shouting nearby, then the hammer next door knocking on a heel. By the end I had counted twelve different sounds in my head and my stomach felt a little cheerful, like going to the market and buying nothing. I don't know if that was meditation.

That afternoon Tín dropped by to collect the sneakers I had glued. I told him I had heard twelve sounds.

— Twelve is a lot, sir. I only hear three or four.

— So how long have you been sitting?

— Honestly, one week. Then orders piled up and I quit. But I like that way, so I tell people.

He laughed, pushed his feet into the shoes, stamped twice on the floor, and rode off. I stood watching him go and thought: maybe a lot of advice is affection for one method, not years of sitting with it. I'm not criticizing anyone. It's just something new I found out.

Picturing a place, I lost right away. Within twenty seconds of closing my eyes I opened them again, because my stall is right at the curb and bikes scrape past close by, and closing my eyes here doesn't feel safe. Even if I had, I couldn't see any image. I only had words: rice field, lamp light, written in my head like labels stuck on a crate I hadn't opened. Some people do see pictures, I'm told, and I don't.

The next day Chị Diễm came by for her shoes, their heels fixed, and asked:

— Did you find the comfortable place yet, sir?

— Not yet. I only get words, not pictures.

— Then you haven't practiced enough. The pictures will come.

She said it with certainty, and I nodded. Later I saw that the nod was part of all this: everyone advises with certainty, the listener nods, even though inside he isn't sure what he's nodding at.

For slowing down, I took a length of waxed thread and slid it through the big needle as slowly as Bà Ba opens banana leaves. I watched the end of the thread pass through the eye and a single fibre fray loose, and I smoothed it back. It took two minutes. Also pleasant. But threading needles is my trade, so I couldn't tell whether I was meditating or doing a familiar job slightly slower than usual.

The teacher's voice stays in your head

What showed itself came on the second day of counting, and it had nothing to do with the numbers.

Thursday morning, half past six, the market just opening, nobody at my stall yet. One. Two. Three. I counted silently and heard someone counting along with me, deeper than my voice, with a tidy rhythm. Cô Loan's voice. At five it said "right." At six I wandered off, and it said, very softly: "back to one."

I opened my eyes. My hands were still on my knees. Nobody was there. Cô Loan was at her house, three alleys away. But the grading voice had followed me all the way to the stool.

A few days later she stopped by to pick up her sandals and asked:

— How far do you count now, sir?

— Up to nine, Cô.

I only knew I was lying after I'd said it. In truth I hadn't got past seven. But she nodded like a teacher finishing a mark, patted the basket on her bicycle, and rode off. I stood there holding the needle, my ears hot. In twenty-two years I haven't lied to anyone about a sole I wasn't sure was glued, and here I had lied about something nobody could check: sitting still for three minutes.

The obvious part is that I was afraid of disappointing her. What I saw later is different: whichever way someone teaches you comes with a grader attached, and a beginner, having nothing of his own to compare with, accepts the grader along with it. I thought I was learning to count breaths. I was learning how to present my work to Cô Loan. Once that happens, every time the mind wanders stops being an ordinary thing for a person who is sitting and becomes a mistake on a test, and mistakes are things to hide. I hid mine by saying nine.

What I did next was small, and it changed a lot. I borrow each method for three minutes only, the way I'd borrow a customer's last to try on a pair. When I'm done sitting, I return it. Out loud, quietly, to myself: "returning it to Cô Loan." Or "returning it to Tín." Only then do I stand. It sounds a little silly, and I thought so too the first day, but I don't want to leave the stool with someone else's voice still in my head.

The first time, I found the sit had two layers: what I was doing, and someone's voice following behind. By the third day the voice was still there but smaller. Other people may find it different, and if you don't hear any voice at all, that's fine too, nobody has to. My snag came on the fourth day: after saying "returning it to Cô Loan," I muttered "I hope she isn't angry" as if she were standing right there. The returning was only meant for putting something down, and I had turned it into an apology. I dropped the apology and kept the word "returning."

On a day when your hands are busy, shorten it: when you finish one pair of shoes, before taking the next, breathe in once and think "returning."

When all four methods make sense, how do you choose?

That afternoon I sat alone in a quiet spell, looking up at the shelf of shoes waiting. Behind me were four pieces of advice from four people, and I had already borrowed all four.

I chose in a poor way. For the first few days I chose by person: Cô Loan was the kindest, so follow her. Then I moved to Tín, because he was young and probably knew something new. Choosing by person was the wrong place to choose from. Cô Loan being kind didn't make her counting suit me better. Tín being young didn't make motorbike noise easier to hear. It only gave me a sense of safety, because behind each method stood a name I trusted.

A better question is small, and you ask it after sitting, not before: would I want to sit again tomorrow? Not which method is correct, not which goes deepest. Just this stool, tomorrow morning: do I still want to sit down on it?

For me the answer landed on two methods: listening and slowing down. Listening felt like going to the market and buying nothing. Threading a needle slowly I still don't know what to call, but the next morning both were methods I wanted to come back to. Counting I did want, but I wanted it to show Cô Loan. Picturing a place I didn't want, really, because beside the curb I don't dare close my eyes.

That doesn't mean counting is bad or picturing is bad. Chị Diễm can picture, and says each time she sees the kitchen lamp clearly. Cô Loan can count to ten, as firm as when she says it. Their methods are right for them. What I learned is that advice can suit one person and not the next, with neither person doing anything wrong.

Try it once, ask the one question, then stop. That is enough.

Where I slipped was asking the question in the middle of the sit, during the three minutes. On day two I asked it halfway through, and it instantly became a new exam: do I want to come back, answer correctly. Ask only after the time is up, once you are on your feet, your hand already on the shoe last to get back to work. Answer with the first feeling, without thinking.

The first time I asked, the word "no" popped out faster than "yes," like the reflex of someone used to turning down a customer who bargains too low. The next day I waited a beat longer and "yes" came. Others may find all methods get a "yes" all week, or all get a "no," and that is fine too: the question is only for asking, not for grading.

That night at dinner my wife asked:

— You've tried all four. Which one are you picking?

— Haven't picked.

— So what will you do tomorrow?

— Don't know. Maybe listening, maybe threading the needle.

— Then tomorrow you sit, and after you sit you ask your question. Why choose and wear yourself out?

She put a piece of braised fish in my bowl and changed the subject. I chewed and thought she was right, and not quite right: I still wanted a name for my own way. Maybe that wanting was another voice too, the voice of someone afraid of getting it wrong. I haven't untangled it yet.

On a busy day, skip the sitting. Ask the question only when you pull the shutter down before locking up: was there a moment today when I wanted to return to the stool? One question, one breath.

If you try all four and every one feels wrong

Sunday, the market quiet. I sat once more with counting, this time with no voice of Cô Loan following me. Still it felt wrong, still I got lost at four. I sat there waiting for something to brighten and nothing did.

I'll guess at two places, and they are only guesses. One is that you may be looking for the "right" way while you sit, so every method turns into an exam. When that happens, change the question rather than the method: don't ask "am I doing this right," ask "what am I doing right now." The other is that three minutes may not be what you need at this moment. Sitting for a few days and then resting for a week isn't failure.

You could read the story of a first sit that failed, if you want to see someone doing worse than you, or the piece on how any posture will do. If you feel sadder or more restless each time you sit, and it goes on for weeks, talk to someone with professional training, and let the stool rest for a while.

As for the shoes nobody collected: they have been on the shelf since the end of last month, a woman's brown leather pair with a loose sole, ticket number seventeen. I glued them long ago. I don't remember the face of whoever left them, and I don't know why they haven't come back. Yesterday I dusted them. This morning they are still there.