Meditation “Supplies”…?
What do buckwheat hulls have to do with meditation? The formal living memory of mediation comes from Asia, south and east—and buckwheat hulls were traditionally used for pillows in Asia—namely east Asia, like Japan. As suggested by zafustore.com, the kapok fiber is more south than east.
Using plant fibers for pillows (apart from cotton) is literally (and naturally) foreign here in the West. Here, the bird feathers dominate the damp, cold thoughts. So, largely, “the market” confines buckwheat and kapok in the realm of “meditation supplies.” So there are westerners hip to the fact they are not in the London fog and alternatives to feathers are at your local hippie/Asian store.
Since my poverty and isolation places my terrible meditation practice in, well, poverty and isolation, it has never occurred to me that there is a market of “meditation supplies.” My first response is that this is just another bunch of bullshit for trophy wives with big, plastic Kaufman and Broad houses—and the minions of people who wish they were such prized trophies. But my ‘wish’ for a better pillow and less monumental, prairie-schooner furniture leads me into this strange market.
My journey started with one very innocent question: Why should I buy a pillow that I can’t wash? My emphasis is on the word ‘innocent’ because it was not my intent to stumble upon yet another “ethnic” issue. You see, the answer to the question is (so far) that it is an accepted tradition in the West to buy pillows that you can never wash—and the modern, North American solution to the dirty pillow is to replace it with a new one (with consumer confidence!). This western situation was unacceptable to me and wonderfully it has been unacceptable to many a hippie before my time.
My appreciation goes out to those American trailblazers who provide me with a plant-fiber-based way to clean and reuse pillows. When will these things start showing up at IKEA?