Once in a while, I’ll try to re-visit something I’ve failed at in the past, especially if it’s something that’s supposed to be good for me. Most recently, that something was meditation. Having trained as a barista for the Kadampa Meditation Center café in Hong Kong a few years ago, imagine my pleasant surprise when I learned of a KMC right here in Manhattan. According to the internets, Kadampa is a tradition that encourages people to apply Buddha’s teachings using a practical method, channeling daily activities into a path of enlightenment. Sounds pretty simple, right? But akin to mastering a sport, understanding the theory behind how something should work doesn’t automatically bequeath unto you the skills to execute that play. Those assignments for religion class at Harvard Divinity School, where I deconstructed the esoteric texts of Vimalakirti, analyzed purposeful cultivation of passion, and mastered the “mastery of the non-self”… did squat for my meditation skills. Coming from a family of pretty intense Buddhists – my aunts have been profiled by Tzu Chi, and a distinct childhood memory I recall from visiting Taiwan is being slapped on the hand by a bald woman for not finishing a banana the monastery cafeteria had served for lunch – I am regularly urged by my parents to try it out, mostly because they are worried about me losing my mind (NB: that may or may not have already happened).
Anyway, for $15 and no prior signup required, it was an easy sell. The center in Chelsea is located en route to Trader Joe’s; if this worked out, I thought, it could be a nice little addition to my weekend errand routine! This time though, the goal wasn’t to find meaning amidst existential crisis (the original impetus for joining KMC in Hong Kong); it was about opening up to different ways of thinking in hopes of discovering something new, whether about myself or my surroundings. Pretty limited downside and potentially endless upside – what better things did I have to do on a Sunday morning? I arrived at the center five minutes early, tucked my boots into the communal cubbies and sauntered over to a middle seat in a middle row. A motley crew of characters filtered in – old, young, pierced, tattooed, blue shirts – and I was joined by an unkempt lady wearing aggressively coral lipstick drawn outside her lip lines and mismatched socks revealed by her too-short jeans.
Like those first few pages into Infinite Jest, you think you know what’s going on, but half an hour later you’re lost, or back in the same place you started. Or bored. Crazy Lips guffawed at all the (not meant to be funny) jokes the spiritual leader made about letting go of unhappiness, murmuring in assent to the rhetorical questions posed, exchanging one-sided glances with people who looked over solely to identify the source of ruckus in our otherwise peaceful sanctuary.
I ended up lasting about an hour into the hour and a half session. The guided meditation was tough, because instructing yourself to visualize emptiness and block certain thoughts out invariably leads you to focus on those very thoughts. Don’t think of a pink elephant! These Buddhists have clearly never studied Wegner. Maybe my mind isn’t strong enough, and/or I was too distracted by Lips, but the moment the session progressed to “turning to your partner and discussing a source of unhappiness”, I decided to get a head start on my grocery shopping.
Ugh. No great life lessons to report back. Will try harder next time.
Throwback to younger days behind the counter at Kadampa Hong Kong.
xo vix
