Meditation – Story

 

I ambled gently amongst zombies roaming the grounds like straight-jacketed patients at the mental asylum in Halloween.  If you drove by a meditation weekend retreat you’d see dozens of plainly dressed adults walking mindlessly or mindfully back and forth in a straight line over and over again.  It’s eery to the observer, but calming to the meditator.  

 

Walking meditation is just one part of the experience.  Picture the beginning of the weekend.  You enter sprawling grounds on a large multi-acre complex in the middle of nowhere in colonial Massachusetts.  Upon approaching the house you feel like you’re back at your 1st day of college.  Bags lay everywhere, uncomfortable adults socialzie, retreat leaders direct traffic.  You check in, find the schedule, and applaud internally when you learn you have two more hours to talk to other humans.  “Silence doesn’t begin until 8 pm.  We get dinner first!”  

 

You are not a vegetarian.  The food is vegetarian.  By the end of the weekend you’ll wonder, “Why am I not a vegetarian?”  I did not miss meat.  Worlds moved.  Breakfast is oatmeal, yogurt, raisins, fresh peanut butter, seeds.  Lunch is the potato-leak-quiche, more peanut butter, and salads.  Dinner is red lentil soup, fresh made bread, and fruit.   

 

A tall, old Navy Sea Captain with slicked back Steven Seagal hair sits down in front of my table for that 1st dinner.  “I got the call this morning that they had a spot for me.  I got on a flight from South Carolina up here to New England right away.”  The Navy vet and I continued our back and forth exchange on our impending first-time meditation weekend experience.  He politely exited the table saying, “Thanks.  I guess you’re the last person I’ll talk to for a couple days.”    

Enter the dark, curly-haired Housewife of New Jersey and her friend, Mr. Potato-Head Serial-Killer Zombie.  Sammie the Housewife was a regular retreater along with Mr. Potato-Head, whose name I didn’t catch and words I couldn’t understand.  We exchanged pleasantries while munching on our red lentil soup until I realized I needed to exit the scene before Mr. Potato Head made me a weekend target. 

 

While meditation is an inward journey, your outward interactions are marked by a deeper focus on others.  The constant voice of your ego quiets down.  You have a clearer channel for communication.  You feel more connected.  Empathy increases.  Relationships improve.  Bonds strengthen.  This is meditation.

 

All that meditation is tiring.  I had to cut the walking meditation periods short to hit some squats and WAKE UP!  I inhaled lunch to make an espresso, take a nap, and rush through a “mindful” forrest walk.  All this just to have enough energy to finish the day.  Monks are superheroes.

 

The weekend taught me much about myself.  I saw clearly my default neural loop of continuously planning ahead and could assess the benefits and drawbacks from a 3rd-party perspective, free of ego and emotional attachment.  Meditation on a smaller scale can yield similar benefits.  Remember, it’s just breathing.  It’s breathing with bigger, badder, better benefits.  

 

If you want to learn how to build a simple meditation habit in one minute per day, read this follow-up post.