Meditation

Lately I have been in the muck. I have my head wrapped under some stuff like a turban and no amount of unraveling seems to get that thing undone. It’s ugly stuff. Stuff I don’t like to talk about, stuff I don’t ever write about. I don’t want record of the ugly stuff. That’s my survival mechanism. I only document the things that don’t hurt too much to look back on. The stuff that doesn’t have a residual build up.

I’m not having the rages. I’m safe right now, actually. Mostly happy. The medication is very efficient. It’s just other stuff I think about all the time. Stuff that makes me deeply sensitive to anything Husband says or does. Stuff that makes me think all the songs on the radio have a deeper meaning, specifically for me. Stuff that makes cry.

Ha. That sounds like I am pregnant. It’s not that kind of stuff, I assure you.

Because of the muck I have started reading self help books. I don’t like all of them, but I do like some. It goes back to that phase where I read Ram Dass and I dreamed about yogis in my bedroom laughing while I slept. I was happy then, thinking like they did. I try to find books like that, but with a little less transcendence. I was never good at meditation.

Things I read that stuck with me:

Happiness it the truest form of human existence. It’s only our thoughts that lead us to unhappiness.

Imagine your thoughts like leaves, floating off of a tree and into a calm, cool stream. Watch each leave for a moment and then let it fall into the stream and be taken away. Do not attach yourself to your thoughts.

This second one only works if you do not imagine that the leaves from your tree are actually molten lava, which cools on exposure to water and hardens in place. You must not imagine your thoughts as lava.

It’s much harder than I like to pretend, thinking of my thoughts like leaves floating down a stream. I try to tell Husband about this exercise – knowing it would help him if he could achieve it – but I can’t make myself do it either. Not “make” myself. That implies force. I want to to do this. But I have not yet been able to.

Fleeting moments are like this. I know when to extract myself and to look at what’s happening in my head objectively, take a minute and let it go. I know what makes me feel better, if I have enough time and a little bit of quiet. I succeed briefly at filling the stream with little leaves (which I imagine to be bright, fall colors like red and gold). Mostly I do this best while I am at work.

I guess that’s my safe place now. Home has too many ghosts in the corner, too many holes I punched in the walls, not enough good lighting. Everything is better with the right lighting.

But that’s the test, right? To be able to find your zen in your least comfortable place. That means you’re on your way to Nirvana, if you can meditate and not feel the discomfort of the world around you. If you can sit with your legs crossed for hours and not care that your legs have fallen asleep or that your roommate is watching TV too loudly. Once your nerves are no longer frazzled while in traffic, because every moment must come and go in your life – then you have achieved inner peace. I want that.

It’s not too much to ask, is it?