Why Meditate

It's not that meditation makes us happier or richer or faster. Meditation helps us see at things as they are. Starting with ourselves. When you see yourself as you are, you accept your own uglies and pretties. When you know what you are, you'll know what things you can and cannot do. You’ll understand the consequences of your actions and inaction. You don't hate the world around you because you'd know that you yourself aren't exempt from things that you cannot change.

(And there is much relief in simply not hating or coveting in everysinglemoment of our lives. Wallah.)

Once you see yourself clearer, you'll start seeing the world clearer too. When you see the world clearer, you'll be less surprised by the things that happen in it. It's not passive, antisocial indifference. It's more like, "this is what the world needs, and this is what you can do." So that your hopes become more realistic. And when your hopes are realistic, you'll face less disappointments. With less disappointments comes hope. With hope grows trust in your strengths and limitations. Which helps you accept your purposes in life, in every day, in reading this. And if you can accept your roles, how could you not grow a belief in a more forgiving and understanding afterlife?

(And if you can just consider the possibility of a happy ending, how could you not give it a shot?)

It's not that meditation makes us happier or richer or skinnier. Meditation can't change light-bulbs. It can, however, help you be aware of that broken light bulb and the realistic steps that'll take to fix it.

Clear Voice

I started trusting the voices in my head last year, on the last meditation course I attended.

Around the seventh day, I started feeling so woozy that I barely managed the mountainous terrain between my sleeping dorm and the meditation hall.

That was when the first voice said, "Low blood pressure."

During these 10-days courses, our diet is a twice-a-day meager vegetarian with very low sodium. It had happened to me before, coming home with my blood pressure so low that I needed to eat a whole kid to fix it. By the time I started feeling the same symptoms again on that course, I had already slipped the stairs and nearly killed myself in the drizzling dark once. I started fretting and worrying about dying from being too good a girl. There was no way I could manage getting a Big Whopper in that place.

Then the second voice said, "Soy sauce."

And I said, "That's gross. I ain't so crazy to listen to that kind of crazy!"

They said nothing. And on the next meal, I poured soy sauce on all my food , the only source of monosodium chloride available in the sterile dining room, and swallowed quickly because it there was no point in indulging medicinal food like that.

And the next time I heard them, the bragging voices in my blood-pressure-normalized-head said, "Glad to have your trust."

Afterglow

Come

You know that feeling?

For a second, everything is blurred in jarring, pleasant blankness. Thoughts muted. Senses peaked. Conscious but void of identity. You are nobody. You are the world. The world is you. And it's is okay. And you understand everything and nothing. And that doesn’t matter. This is just how everything in the world works.

All that brouhaha with not a hint of kink, in a room full of fellow meditators. Or on a yoga mat, exiting a long practice. Or on the prayer rug, after the closing salams.

English and Arabic use the same words for both sexual orgasm and religious ecstasy. Probably because it feels the same. And it looks the same from the outside. The methods might differ, but the experience is basically the same.

That’s pretty cool for a hermit with anti-social tendencies. And for anyone who would think that ecstasy is only available is for those who are sexually fulfilled.

(Compared to sex, asanas and sports might sound as fun as masturbation. I'm not complaining, though. Cheap, careless sex can do worse damage than masturbation.)

(Oh, quit smirking. I'm trying to say something here.)

Catch

I might be pushing the no-sex tab a bit far. But it I’ve been indulging in too much talk. And I need to strengthen my faith in the solitary nature of fluent work.

Qusai nags about practice. Practice that builds momentum. The goal to physical exertion is to calm the mind. The calm might lead to orgasm/ecstasy/rainbows.

Yoga isn't just a physical exercise. Meditation isn't just "not thinking". Repetition builds fluency. Fluency leads to easier immersion in work. You don’t talk when you’re immersed. And when you don’t talk, there’s a better chance to reach the calm. The calm might lead to ecstasy. Ecstasy needs a build up. Build up takes is repetition. Nothing happens just from a single stroke.

First that moment of jarring blank. Then orgasm or ecstasy. Then the happy, floating afterglow. It looks tedious and impractical, but the afterglow is always awesome.

If ecstasy justifies the past, then afterglow is for things to come.

The ecstasies have the same effect, however it arrived. A systematic restart. And like all restarts, it's only a button's press then it's gone. But, the afterglow that follows. Ah. That.

Cohere

Remember when the afterglow lasted all day? Everything we touched and did felt prettier and smoother. Like we are loved through and through. Like we can handle it all. A renewal of faith. A glimpse of God.

And what in the world is beyond us with a spark like that in our souls?

Muslim Note: I like to think that the positions in a Muslim prayer is a meditation designed for build up. A build up for the calm to arrive at the very end. When the person, the prayer and the universe come at the tip of a finger, testifying Unity (شهادة).

dezombification week

This is an expression of belated well-wishes and BIG LOVE for everyone, and especially for Triesti and midget's shared sweetheart, good ol' Colson.

For midget's aunt, Myra, this had been her first time on a meditation retreat. Myra seems to have come out of it okay, but just in case, the Timekeeper was the one who endorsed her enrollment, so if anything broke in auntie, Mom, it's his fault.

As for Triesti and midget who have done this before, the ride had never been so smooth. It's a wonderful shock to find that it no longer hurt either body, mind or wallet to meditate intermittently for 11 hours, from 04:00 until 21:00, every day.

At home, though, the zombification side-effects from practicing monastic vows of silence and lifestyles started to show: Midget lost her house keys, forgot how to type and spent hours staring at the shower knob, trying to remember how to turn it on.

Catching up with Triesti, who reported similar experiences, they decided to postpone all high-level mental activities (including showering) until they recover more psychomotor coordination & psychosocial skills, and concentrate on cursing fucking EATING MEAT for a few more days.

Or not. (^_^) i miss blogging, brain! Dezombify already!!

Mirrors

I feel like I'm going to die in a few hours and this will be my last post.

Actually, that is how it feels to shut down all communication, in adherence to the regulations. After what has happened twice before, I don’t know when I can reincarnate and learn to speak and write again. Thankfully, vanity dictates that there is no way I'd go carrying with me this sense of unwritten.

***

Once, the Timekeeper held me by the scruff, threw me into his rural dungeon house and said, "Khalas, you have fulfilled those basic needs enough. It is time you learn other things."

Since then, I had a series of boyfriends breaking up with me because I could not go over the crux of man-woman relationship, which I used took for granted before the Father of All Intervention cannoned my gender-identity into premenopausal dissolution.

Why? Ah, if only you knew of things worse than sin and celibacy.

***

I once asked a man why he saved himself for the good wife, if she ever came by. (That is, by the way, my way of asking if he ever questioned his sexuality or if there is something wrong with his plumbing.)

He said, “Deeds echo and consequences ricochet,” and that if they were return to him or someone nearby, he might as well hope that it was in goodness.

I called it moral bollocks; that all is fair in love and frolics, and God would be happy for us having a good frisk.

He said, "At a point, it isn't about morals anymore. You have also had your chances to break your friskfast, why haven't you?"

Images of the Timekeeper intervened our conversation to a hush. Of the Timekeeper taking the risk in keeping my scruff in his house, entrusting his material wealth, patting my sobs when Boyfriend No. 1034, 2703, or 3229 lost interest because – for the love of mankind! – I could not step break my goddamned fast.

That, even if I did not care about him, I am too indebted to refuse the Timekeeper this much of obedience: Take everything you want, as long that you can spend all eternity reflected in it.

***

Maybe it would look nice and neat to stop here. Every time I lose my way in a rambling jungle, I want to quit while there is some value to sell at profit, rather than worsen what is already mediocre and morbid.

But something is amiss.

Society provides measurable reflections of validity. By doing things that I was naturally, gender-appropriately, good at, I mattered. ONE MORE VIRGINAL RELATIONSHIP CAN'T HURT, CAN IT? All I had to do was to fuel a system of coquetry that cares for nothing beyond felicity and vanity.

Whereas here? Now? Smack in the crux of the Ring of Fire? How did the earthquake that crushed Japan in early 2011, the Javanese volcano in 2010,and the Sumatran earthquake in 2009, impress the regency, the house and the life I write from?

Not a tinkle on the Boobster scale. This place is as icy as granny panties stuck in freezer that is entombed in an Antarctic iceberg.

And because there hasn't been a lot of natural disasters around, people had no choice but to warm themselves with work. They have had time to raise ducks and grow rice and feed the population. They even had to marry and have children and cultivate endless fields of hope within.

These villagers developed awareness of their higher needs in natural accordance with the fulfillment of the basic. That there had been at least three generations fed and fulfilled that they remember what it was like to listen to the voices within, consequently to seek and trust its guidance.

And because there hasn't been many natural disasters, you have had the time to sit there and indulge my rambling misery. If only I could tell you a story to remember how lucky I am to have your kind company.

That after all the meditation hideaways and yoga practices and linguistic disasters, with the right amount of blahness, I might touch the palest shades of epiphany, merely by recalling nature's effects upon society and - ultimately - upon the individual's partiality.

And be glad for what I have been allowed to live with.

No shortcuts

It worried me when the Timekeeper told me to take care of Kim.

When I asked what was the matter with him, Kim (whose name meant GOLD and was the richest man in the regency) only shrugged, mumbled, then finally croaked: "I'm losing my memories…The doctors said I'm fine…I was hoping for a miracle cure…"

Ah. That is why his case was delegated to the lollygagging house bunny. I was supposed to have the patience to put up with this.

"Your memories aren't missing, sir, you just got too much noise in here." (Tap-tap on my temple.) "You need to make space for them to settle, sir."

I picked up a flyer, waved it in front of him, "You're Buddhist, right? So you have more right to this than I do. The meditation course is offered to everyone for free every month. It froze my voice for a year, so I'm pretty sure it will work better than miracles in clearing the voices in your head."

-------

Few weeks later, while hanging out with fellow meditators, I asked them, "Why wouldn't he take my suggestion? Why do the rich always go for the "ridiculous & trendy" rather than the "tried & true but lame"?

And they said, "He isn't called for it yet. He hasn't gathered enough karma."

I rolled my eyes. "So he's supposed to suffer? This thing has been around for centuries! It won't cost him penny or penicillin to sit through meditation and have his wires fixed!"

"It's because happiness/health/freedom is not for free. There are no shortcuts. Kaffarah, redemption and karma are costs that we must pay for rewards, heaven or nirvana."

The thought pissed me off (and later relieved me from so much guilt) for two reasons:

1. The best suggestions in the world will be the first ones flushed. It is not a personal thing. No matter how smart your ideas are, people need to be broken to bones before they can follow simple orders.
2. You cannot give your happiness to others. إنك لا تهدي من أحببت You can show it. You can stir curiosity. You can teach the method and direct the path. But you cannot walk the path for anyone.

So there.

Breakpoint

Vipassana training: Day 7

I finally decided to ask Xifu the question that I SHOULD’VE ASKED from the first time we started meditating like professional monks and nuns.

“I don’t mind the stillness,” I said, switching my weight between numb buttcheeks. “Or the miseries that stillness brings. Or the blinding pain – NO, REALLY! – I actually DO believe in Buddha and his teachings…I’m only worried that something might break. Something like my heart, or legs...”

“You won’t,” said Xifu, “the human body can do amazing things. Sitting still for a full hour is one of the easiest challenges it had to endure.”

“What if something breaks?” I said, “The way my body shakes from pain and ache...”

“You’ll only become stronger. Both physically and mentally. You know this.”

“DUDE, ARE YOU FUCKING WITH ME? Are you ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY SURE that nothing will break? REALLY?!”

Xifu’s didn’t say anything for a while. Giving me time to gather courage to look at him. (The courage to hear from another what I already knew, and did not want to believe.)

“Isn’t that the whole point to meditation?” he finally said, and with kindness. “Knowing thyself, and accepting it for what it is, good or bad or broken? You’ll be fine. In fact, you already are...”

Then he winked. As if he’d heard the stuff I didn’t say. As if winking was all that it took for me to believe; and let things become.

And let things, everything and eventually, be fine.

Because, dude, breaking thresholds of pain & fear & faith is a totally and an awesomely fine thing to go through indeed.

(In one way or another, at least, with hemorrhoids and weight loss and deformed buttcheeks and all.)

Shushed Worship

What if people stopped talking for a while?

Tradition
Vows of Silence, found in monastic Buddhism and Catholicism, are based on the idea that if we truly understand and accept the Awe of God’s Word, nobody has the right or need to raise their voices anymore.
In the case of Zachary and Mary, silence marked the beginning of parenthood.
Maybe because conception occurs when parents are in universal and nonverbal awe. Maybe because talking about how it happened would’ve been icky. Or lessen the magic.
Either ways, since the social mentality from the days of the prophets to ours is basically the same, TRYING to explain their children might’ve worsened Mary’s and Zachary’s situations. Because children conceived through irregular means would definitely stir a lot of talk.
More nasty talk than nice, actually. Which, by responding to those, would have brought the holy parents down to that nasty level of meanness. Along with their to-be-prophets children.
So the holy children had to suffice as explanation. Every child, whatever his origin was, had to explain himself to the judgmental society. By himself.
(As every newborn babe should.) (As every understated miracle should.)
False Notes
Between Silence and Noise, there is a long, hard path of deliberate meditation. Passive responses don’t always indicate numbness or inattentiveness, just active thoughtfulness.
Because providing the world with the time and peace it needs to ferment and assimilate and be properly understood is all that it takes for us to see understated miracles.
With occasional lapses of silence.
(PS: If we protect our right to speech, I wonder how we protect our right to silence?)