Progress is approaching

I jumped right in and took the Meditating in Everyday Life course at the Shambhala Centre in December. I’m still a bit hit-and-miss on this meditation thing. See, now I should be meditating, but I’m writing instead.

I’ve made two important discoveries as I sit still (every second day) and struggle through five minutes of solitude.

I like to:

1. Stay very, very busy…
2. To run away from writing about stuff I care about because investing yourself in writing is scary.

Just ask Penelope Trunk, who uses squirm-inducing honesty about her personal life--marriage, parenthood, divorce, dating, pending marriage, end of the relationship--and links that to career advice--risk-taking, Asperger’s at work, family businesses.

As part of this meditation course, we’re encouraged to do readings in various Buddhist texts. But in our reminder e-mail, we’re reminded that we don’t HAVE to do the readings. These are Buddhists, remember? What are they going to do if you don’t do your homework? Look extra compassionately at you? Be super kind and forgiving?

For me, sitting still is like trying to sit through a hurricane. When I sit, I have:

• imaginary fights in my head with family members and co-workers
• find fantastic success in the publishing world
• win the lottery
• watch my life fall apart
• rebuild from the ashes, and
• wonder when I’ll get around to using those Crest Whitestrips that are sitting in my drawer

The readings from this course tell us that by meditating we can find our own “divine goodness”.

Ouch! I think I just blew my ganglia on that one.

That just seems so radical to a Catholic raised on original sin.

Just shut up and be still for a while and you’ll find out that you’re just fine. Of course, I’m paraphrasing here.

But I like this idea. I really like it.

The problem is that I’m feeling more snarly and irritated since I started. This is common, apparently. The meditation masters liken the early stages to sitting under a waterfall.

Well I’ve gone over the edge, my canoe is in pieces and I’m being smashed to bits.

It’s very tiring lugging this thought machine around. I’m managing about five seconds of mental silence every second day and it's not enough.

So, now I’m trying to write. And in doing so, I’m running away from meditating.

As my friend Helen likes to say, “Progress is approaching.” She tells me that this quote might be from someone literary, but I'm too lazy to look it up and Helen is too scattered. She also says that the "H" in ADHD stands for "Helen".

A peaceful titan or Madonna in lingerie?

The reasons for coming to Shambhala that rainy night were eclectic among our group. There was my fictional reason, stress relief, for help with depression, and my favorites:

• further develop one’s psychic ability, and
• complete a fourth-year assignment to try something new.

The university student brought along her boyfriend, who sat at the ready to yank her out of there and run for the door if it started to resemble some weird cult.

After making sure everyone was comfortable—extra cushions or a chair for those who needed them (not me, I could sit cross legged because I was fit and did yoga regularly), it was time for simple instruction:

• Keep your eyes open and the gaze forward on the floor without focusing on anything in particular.
• Just breathe and be still.

It was off to the meditation races. Here’s what my inner life looked like for those few minutes:

• My ankles are starting to hurt. How am I supposed to think of nothing when my ankles hurt?
• Back to the breath.
• Gotta remember the followup lice treatment. It’s a miracle our washing machine hasn’t kacked out with all the insect troubles we’ve had to deal with over the last two years.
• If I find gnits on their heads after Round 2 of treatment, we’ll have to do 12 more loads of laundry. I’ll want to run away from home.
• Breathe
• Maybe I can whittle our wardrobes down to five outfits each.
• Oli should sign up for this. It’d be good for him.
• Shut up!
• Must get Sauvignon Blanc for Saturday. And red wine for Friday too for that matter.
• What’s Tibetan for: She who has the attention span of a gnat?

“Time’s up. Anyone have any thoughts?”

I snorted. That’s all I was—a seething mass of thoughts that make me feel dissatisfied and snarly.

Henry shared a Buddhist anecdote about imagining we’re in a house, with the front and back doors open.

“Just let the thoughts pass on through,” he said. “Don’t serve them tea and cookies.”

That’s what I was doing wrong. I was busy renovating, growing heirloom tomatoes, preparing a 10 course-meal, and opening the door for the jangling horde of uninvited thoughts.

Then we took another crack at it. Here’s how it went:

• Breathe.
• Maybe I’ll sign up for a course here.
• Just thinking. Breathe.
• Breathe.
• I wonder how often these cushions get cleaned?
• Breathe.
• Someone here is a really loud breather.
• Breathe
• Hey, it’s quiet in my head. Shit! I ruined it.

That was much better.

I figure that if I could achieve a few more seconds of mental peace, then I’d probably stymie it by getting irritated by my own blinking.

On Sundays, they meditate for two hours here. Two hours!

The rockstars of Buddhism (not to be confused with Buddhist rockstars) go on retreats that last for three years, three months and three days.

Start with smaller amounts of time, Henry suggested.

I learned to run one minute at a time. I’ll meditate one minute at a time, until my brain becomes a peaceful titan, or maybe my brain will become muscular, yet svelte like Madonna in lingerie. Figuratively speaking.

I have a small head; no titan would ever fit in there.

Why not inner peace and whiter teeth?

Maggie's way ahead of me--show off

Squinting at the dark, shiny road and mentally berating drivers who dared to delay me by tens of seconds with their left-turn antics, I drove to my first meditation instruction at the Shambhala Centre on Wellington Street West in Ottawa.

My irritation intensified as the bumpy asphalt gave way to the undulating, crunching gravel of a construction zone. Now, where in the hell was I going to park?

I knew I should have left earlier.

After pussyfooting around this for about three years (four and a half—let’s be honest!), I decided to take the plunge and do the meditation open house. I’m driven, easily distracted, but not impulsive.

I can’t even get into the right frame of mind to approach this whole Buddhism thing. I’ve read a few books and I know that doesn’t make me an expert. I’m not disciplined enough to regularly sit and meditate for longer than a couple of minutes.

I don’t think I can last more than 20 seconds without thinking of something on my unrelenting, never-ending internal to-do list, or something utterly ridiculous like:

• What does Lady Gaga look like without her makeup?, or
• maybe I could put Crest Whitestrips on my teeth while I meditate. Then, I could achieve inner peace and have whiter teeth.

And twenty seconds of thought-free mental silence is probably an exaggeration, it’s probably more along the lines of 0.49 seconds.

So why was I subjecting myself to this mental torture? I guess for anyone seeking a change, it was because what I’ve been doing isn’t working. The barking in my head makes me tired. I’m not talking about auditory hallucinations, just the constant din of the internal chatter.

So, as I was ushered into the Shambhala sitting room, where two other newbies waited. I worked at calming myself down and making small talk. Eventually, our three became seven.Once we achieved the critical mass, a sinewy older fella named Henry, led us to the smaller shrine room.

Off we go, I thought. I did my “criss-cross applesauce legs” and perched on my pillow. I was sure that I had the best posture there.

“Now, that we are all here, I think we should go around the circle, introduce yourself and tell us why you decided to come here,” Henry said.

Oh shit, I thought. There’s nothing more that I hate than sitting or standing in a circle formation and talking to people I don’t know well. I go red in the face, which is pretty stupid, really because I’ve MC’ed weddings, for feck sake.

So, it was my turn and I told them my name and I lied. Sorta. I said that my mother-in-law has studied Buddhism for years and I borrowed some of her books and became interested.

But, this is not new for me. This is part of a pattern. I was raised Catholic and when it was time for Confession, I was afraid that my sins were too terrible (I called my mother a mole-face and then drew rude pictures of her), so I lied: “I stole some candy.”

I was convinced that I was going to hell. So, now I’m switching religions to get around that.

Next: What happened?

Then: What did I sign up for?