last week i was at a silent buddhist meditation retreat. this week I am suddenly addicted to chocolate and Facebook, all the while having 'isn't it awful' conversations about how everyone nowadays is glued to a screen and teenagers don't know how to have face-to-face conversations any more.
I just read Susan Maushart's book "The Winter Of Our Disconnect' about what happened when she and her three teenagers unplugged from all their devices for six months. Predicatably, after various withdrawal symptoms, they rediscover the sweet joys of cooking, conversation, musical instruments etc. Read it because she's funny. I laughed out loud (LOL) even though its serious stuff too, to do with addiction basically.
I was so glad to be totally away from all that endless bloody chatter, at the retreat last week.
tho its funny I sort of love and hate it in equal measure: On the one hand it is the loveliest thing in the world to dwell in silence for a while, don't have to make small talk, or big talk, or respond to emails, don't have to hear about the tedious old election, don't even have to think about what to cook for dinner.
Being No-one, Going Nowhere - what a relief. I watch the bees gathering pollen in the wattle next to my tent. I study ants. I sit in the winter sun.
On the other hand, this whole meditation biz is so bloody hard and uncompromising. There's nowhere to hide. I sit in the meditation hall, struggling with all the idiotic thoughts prattling in my brain. Its like commercial radio i can't turn off. It's like mentally wrestling with alligators. I focus on my breath for a nano-second or two then realise my mind is off eating an icecream in Rome last month, regretting that handbag i didn't buy - what did it look like again? Or rehearsing a conversation I'll never have with someone I haven't seen in years or...bla bla bla
Our thoughts think us, not the reverse. We are all addicted to thinking, says the meditation teacher. That's hen he's not busy reminding us about the fact that we could all be dead any time and will certainly be dead sooner or later, and most of what we fill our lives with is meaningless, fleeting baubles and bubbles and distractions.
As soon as I get home, I go into a distraction feeding-frenzy. Onto Facebook for the first time in months, I figure out how to upload my photos from Italy, then waste hours sort of sniffing and scrabbling about, looking up people I haven't seen for decades and probably don't really want to see ever again.
At the retreat I got up at 5.30 every morning and did yoga and felt like my life was sort of in control and I was a more-or-less sane person. On the first day after getting home I meditated for about five minutes. then boof! back to my old chocolate-eating, sleeping in, procrastinating old familiar ways.
In my journal at the retreat i remind myself: 'Be Spacious'
...chocolate, meditation, sleeping in, yoga, blobbing out. all okay.
No comments:
Post a Comment