Zen Mind

Tonight, I went with Ladan to a Buddhist meditation class at the Tibet House on 15th Street. I have actually been wanting to go for many years, as another friend used to go all the time and she was such a kind, well-balanced, all around special and amazing person that I contributed some tiny little bit of it to her Buddhist practice. We arrived late because we went to the gym first, and I was already worrying about whether anyone was going to steal my boots because they had to stay outside in the communal hallway. This is a very non-Buddhist thought, worrying that some fellow meditationer might snatch your Prada boots. (Which I did not even buy, mind you, because I don't normally wear anything other than clogs.) I should have known right then, that this was not going to work for me, but instead we went inside and sat on some folding chairs, in our stockinged feet. We missed the introduction part, and pretty much went straight into a 20 minute meditation. I tried to imagine, starting from the very top of my head and working downwards, that every single cell in my body was smiling. So I focused on making my scalp happy, and even the cells in my hair, despite them already being dead. My eyes, and my forehead, and my nose, lips and tongue. And suddenly, I felt this amazing sense of radiance sparking from the tip of my head. In my mind, my brain was glowing, giving off this golden sparkly light, and then my eyes, and cheeks and mouth all were golden and sparkling. And it was like my brain was having an orgasm, I felt this amazing sense of openess and freeness and energy and peace and nothing and everything all at one time.

So of course, I cannot just let the meditation continue to my neck, and shoulders and knees and toes...no. And this is where I know that I have a long way to go, and perhaps should consider a daily practice. Because I then started marveling over how amazing it was that I was actually meditating (I can do this!) and feeling this rush of nothing/everything envelop me, and I started to ruminate on that and how I wish I could document the amazingness, like, could there be a CAT scan capturing this on video? Which somehow led me to think about Christmas, and gifts!, and then I thought about what I might make for dinner. And a few more thoughts crowded into that space of delicious light and totally obliterated it into nothing. Then my feet started to hurt because I could not really touch the floor, and I was getting ancy, because I wanted to go back to the golden light place, not sit around listening to other people talk about their meditation issues. So I sat in my uncomfortable folding chair eating TicTacs until the break time when I told Ladan that I had to go home. Maybe next time, I will be able to stay the whole two hours, and slowly I can work myself up to a five day Buddhist retreat, where they hit you with a stick if you have bad posture.