Tushita

I’m getting ready to head up to a week long meditation retreat.  Tushita, the meditation center is just above town in the pine forest.  It’s is beautiful and absolutely serene up there.  I took a short course last week up there.  The course was on Emotional Balance.  A spit fiery American woman taught it.  I’m not sure where exactly she lives, but half of her time is spent in Asia.  She made reference to Boulder a couple times and it sounds like she possibly did some undergraduate work at Naropa.

I don’t know why when I enrolled in the course at a meditation center,  I didn’t think I’d actually be meditating.  I imagined learning about “Emotional Balance” and getting new skills on affectively dealing with disappointment, sadness, anger…. You know, that kind of stuff.  Well, apparently the way to affectively deal with those emotions is through awareness which is gained through meditation.  Go figure.

I surprised myself and actually took to meditation quite well.  At first it seems absolutely impossible to not fidget and scratch your nose.  Lee, the spit fire American, tells us that being fidgety  is another form of anger.  What!  Are you kidding me!?  I’m failing already.

I begin to settle and accept that I will be sitting for some time.  The fidgetiness goes away.  I no longer need to scratch my nose.  I am pretty relaxed, I’m actually comfortable (for the moment) and my mind is being flooded.  Flooded with thought, with memories, “what are we going to have for lunch”, “I hope I’m doing this right”, “mmm, this is starting to hurt my shoulders”.  Which is perfectly natural and ok but I am learning the point of meditation is to quiet all this chatter.   Which is hard.  Really hard.  Now I’m just trying to tell myself to stop thinking.  Oddly enough sitting and focusing on your breath, looking for those moments in between thoughts is something you can get used to.  Time slips by and when the sounding bell rings and gently awakens you to your surroundings again, the calmness, the stillness is magnificent.

We break for lunch.  We’re told to hold our silence and not talk to each other during lunch.  We’re instructed to take notice of our food.  Noticing the smell, the texture, taste.   We are being taught to be aware.  At lunch everyone has a soft gaze and we all decide to watch the forest (since we can’t talk to each other).

During this course I was given instruction on how to affectively deal with our emotions in the moment while they’re happening.  I’ve also been introduced to meditation and I love the practice of it.  At times it really sucks, really sucks.  Overall, the benefit far outweighs my discomfort.  Even though it sucks, I’m ready to dive into it again!

So, in just a few hours here, I’m headed up to Tushita again.  This time for 8 days and being silent the entire time.  No internet, no music, no idle chit chatter about the weather.  Can’t wait!