| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |
Day 4.
11:00am - 11:30am: lunch.
11:30am - 1:00pm: rest.
Still haven’t found the flow.
My plate is full of food. I turn to sit in my usual spot, but there are two men there. There’s still enough room for me to squeeze in between, so I do. I settle and begin to eat, ripping apart my naan and sopping up the rice and vegetables. Tearing the naan, I accidentally bump elbows with the old man to my left. An indignified expression comes over his face and I attempt to apologize - the beginning of the word ‘sorry’ escapes my lips. He waves his hand dramatically between us and turns his head away as if to say, “I don’t want this. Go away!”
I’m unsettled. I finish my food as fast as possible to head back to my bed for a nap.
I had been kept awake most of the night by a fog horn snorer in the bed next to mine. The few hours I slept were spent outside on the ground.
I open the dorm room door and hear that the snorer has beat me to nap, volume set to volumous. I just want to meditate now.
Day 5.
1:00pm - 2:20pm: meditate.
 |
| No pictures in the meditation hall. |
Still haven’t found the flow.
It’s a disaster. I’m trying to meditate, but I have a splitting headache.
Meditating requires breathing through your nose. I’ve always been a mouth-breather (try finding a picture of me with my mouth closed), so breathing through my nose is suffocating. During the first few days of meditation, my throat swelled up. Initially, I thought it was bad air, but I realized that my throat was unused to the passage of air through my nose. My jaw muscles also succumbed to the workout of keeping closed.
The only remedy is to stop using my jaw muscles. That means either sitting with my mouth agape or balancing my head on my knee while sitting upright. I look like a contorted, slack-jawed ape. At least it doesn’t hurt.
The teacher calls the next six of us up. **He is sitting cross-legged on a chair draped in white cloth. We kneel closely in a line in front of him. Being the foreigner, I get the usual respectful treatment of being addressed first. He bends forwards, motions one hand towards his mouth with his fingers and thumb together, and whispers,
“Are you avare of de bread?”
What? Well I’ve been baptized and received my first communion, so I’ve certainly consumed the Body of Christ several times in my youth… I don’t think that’s what he’s talking about.
“The bread?”
“Yes, the bread. The breat-uh. Are you avare of de breats.”
“Oh the breath! Yeah.”
“Good. Now keep your mouth close when meditating.”
“Yes sir. Thank you.”
Day 6.
2:30pm - 3:30pm: meditate.
3:30pm - 5:00pm: meditate.
 |
| Aware and equanimous. |
Still haven’t found the flow.
By now, we’re expected to sit motionless for one hour, three times a day (morning, afternoon, and evening). This one is going well.
Shins: “I’m aching, please move me.”
Lower back: “I’m tense, relax please.”
Mind: “On my left shoulder, just as the arm starts on the side, I feel a soft pressure from my t-shirt.”
…
Throat: “Stuff in your throat. Cough now, please.”
Butt: “Hey, I’m getting squished down here, can you get up for a sec?”
Mind: “Near my left elbow on my outer forearm, I don’t feel anything… wait - a light draft is marginally ruffling some hairs.”
…
Shins: “Shooting pain! Hurting! Pain! Move!”
Lower back: “So much tension! Relax your back, now!”
Throat: “There is a blockage descending into your lungs. Cough now!”
Butt: “Your bony ass is indenting the pillow through your skin. There are nerve ending in between. Stop it!”
Mind: “I acknowledge you. You are pain. You are a sensation. Just as you’ve come, you will come to pass. I get to choose my reaction and I choose ignorance.”
“I feel the base my left ring finger resting against my pinky finger…
I was consistently able to remain motionless for one hour. It was mostly due to my ability to remain equanimous to pain. The freedom from pain is incredibly liberating. It is there, but choosing not to react to it is so freeing, so satisfying. At times, a light feeling of flow overcame me, providing the sensation of countless heavy bags of sand weighing down all over my body. It was an unpleasant sensation, but it made me forget any feelings of pain.
Day 7.
5:00pm - 5:30pm: dinner snack.
5:30pm - 6:00pm: rest.
Still haven’t found the flow.
I used to have an obsession with the ‘dinner snack’ here. I would prepare myself to spring up from meditation exactly at 5pm and rush to the dining hall. I would be first in line, first to pour the food on my plate. The food looked like Rice Krispies cereal with assorted nuts, spiced and salted. It was so satisfyingly crunchy… then I would grab a piece of fruit and collect a cup and fill it with hot malt, a thick, spiced beverage. I would sit and eat, refilling my cup of malt five more times and help myself to a second portion of the food.
I used to. I’ve lost my zeal for that one vice I had here. I’m happy now and I will be happy when I am eating, just with more pleasureable sensations. It does me no good to obsess or crave - in fact, it harms me. It takes away the happiness I could be experiencing now. I’m happy now.
“Acknowledge sensations, acknowledge pleasure, acknowledge pain. But don’t let pleasureable sensations turn into craving, don’t let painful sensations turn into aversion. Craving and aversion will bring you misery. When you experience those feelings of craving or aversion, acknowledge them, but don’t submit to them. This is why we meditate - to become attuned to all the sensations and feelings the body experiences and to learn how to remain unreactive to those sensations and feelings.
Maintain perfect awareness… perfect equanimity… you will be absolved of all your misery… you will find deep happiness…”
Day 8.
6:00pm - 7:00pm: meditate.
Still haven’t found the flow.
I reflect on my thoughts over the past week. Most of them were craving or contemplation of all the people who have taken part in my life. I thought deeply about people that matter to me, people who have shaped my life, and even people who made brief, unimportant appearances. I thought about how much I will do when I have internet again, how much I would like to leave India for an ‘easier’ country, how much I will accomplish in setting up for the longer-term in China, how much I will enjoy seeing family in Dublin.
This contemplation of the past is useless entertainment. This desire for the future makes me despise my present. The only constructive, non-meditative thinking I’ve done here has been the exploration of new ideas.
There was one potent idea that is still shaping me. There are things in life that you can choose to pursue: happiness, pleasure, relief of pain, wealth, power, knowledge, personal connection… You can choose how much effort you would like to put into each pursuit according to what you want to do in life. The effort you actually put into each pursuit is often different than your ideal. Why? You get cravings and aversions that convince you to put effort into pursuits that you would ideally deem unimportant. Some of them are useful:
“My mouth is incredibly dry and I’m feeling faint. I really want water right now.”
“My hand is getting squished. It really hurts! I really want relief from this pain right now.”
Some of them aren’t:
“I’ve already eaten a lot and my stomach is full, but that cake would be so tasty. I really want to eat that cake right now.”
“I really want nicotine from a cigarette right now.”
The more you are aware of cravings and aversions and the more equanimity you use when reacting to cravings and aversions, the better you can direct your reactions in the direction you would ideally choose. Since craving and aversion are not available on demand, it is difficult to train yourself into awareness and equanimity towards them. What you can practice, though, is developing awareness and equanimity towards sensation. Training awareness and equanimity towards sensation is meditation. Meditation provides you with a self-disciplinary tool to more effectively react to your cravings and aversions.
Right now, I choose to pursue happiness. I choose to be present. I choose to be aware and equanimous. I choose to think about what I’m feeling on the surface of my skin below my right shoulder blade… do I feel my t-shirt? No. There’s no warmth or chill beyond body temperature. My pulse though - I feel my skin ripple there with every beat. Now what do I feel at my spine below my shoulder blades…
 |
| It was presently beautiful, but when wasn't? |
| Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 |