Wednesday, March 2, 2016

Nirvana

A couple of weeks ago my friend Kate told me that she found a free meditation class near our houses and she thought it would be a good idea for me to go to it. And I was like, "I DON'T NEED MEDITATION I'M PERFECTLY CALM WHY ARE YOU LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT!?!?!"

It's true that in the last couple of months I've been just slightly more on edge than usual. There was a 7-week period starting somewhere in January where my phone began telling me how long it would take me to get home from wherever I was, using my office address as the "home" location.

A couple of weeks ago Matt had a come-to-Jesus with me about my life choices, which means things were really serious because Matt doesn't like to talk about anything, ever. I'm not kidding you about this. I have at least four dozen inanimate objects in my home right now that talk about their feelings more than Matt does.

So when Kate mentioned that a meditation class might be a good idea for me, it wasn't much of a surprise.

She came with me, along with our friend Matt. Not Matt Pants. A different Matt. Matt Pants would never attend a meditation class. When I asked him if he wanted to come, he told me some variation of "hell no" and then said that while we were doing that nonsense he was going to be home pouring himself "a glass of dinner." (Hashtag wine).

The three of us showed up to a studio that was quickly filling with middle-aged hippies. The visitors greeted one another with soft voices and whimsical smiles. Within 30 seconds of arriving, I already heard someone comment on the "energy." I could not have been happier about this.

A very helpful woman, realizing that we three were very out of place in Woodstock, directed us to a room full of pillows and blankets and instructed us on what we would need for that night's session.

We gathered a few items and then found our places in the half-formed circle around the edges of the room.

And then class began.

In a airy and pleasant voice, the instructor welcomed us, explaining that we would be having three TWENTY MINUTE segments of silent meditation. She informed the group, for the benefit of the newcomers, that this was called "breathing" meditation, or something like that and that the point of it was to think only about breathing. FOR ONE FULL HOUR.

Fight or flight set in right around this moment. I immediately began subtly searching for all of the room's exits, wondering if they had been locked and if this was a cult and maybe I was trapped and what if they make me have intimate relations with old men!

NOT THAT WE KNOW ANY OLD MEN, CATHIE!

But before I could dart for the door and avoid a life of bonnets and homemade cheese, the instructor rang the gong and the room fell completely silent.

Every once in a while the instructor would break the silence to read a brief poem about how "life lives through us" and "we are all one." Or she would remind us that if our minds wandered to anything other than how our breath feels in our bodies, we needed to return our thoughts and "mindfulness" to the present because of Earth and nature and beauty and the circle of existence. Or something. I don't know. I was too stressed out about the fact that I couldn't get myself to think about nothing to pay very much attention to what she was saying.

THIS WAS A VERY STRESSFUL EXPERIENCE FOR ME.

After twenty minutes of this silent sitting meditation, we began a twenty-minute session of "walking meditation," wherein we had to walk around the room at roughly .5 miles per hour, thinking only about breath and the way the floor felt on our bare feet.

And then, we returned to our pillows for another twenty minutes of "sitting meditation." Because apparently we still had some more thinking to do about our breath.

I had had it with meditation class by this point. To me, it amounted to a combination of exhausting boredom and hokey dramatics. And I could not understand how someone got a group of people to come do this every single week.

But then, in the final sitting meditation session, something magical happened.

I'm not sure how to explain it, exactly, but it was like my mind shut completely down. All I could really hear was the sound of my own breath, which sound was nearly deafening. And I don't think I even flinched for the full twenty minutes.

When the instructor rang the gong to conclude our class, I opened my eyes, surprised that twenty minutes had gone by. And then it occurred to me: y'all! I THINK I ACHIEVED NIRVANA!

And before achieving nirvana, I literally never even said "y'all!"

SO I GUESS I'M BUDDHIST NOW.

~It Just Gets Stranger

49 comments:

  1. Step one, achieve nirvana. Step two, move into a VW van. Step three grown your hair out. Step four make your own cheese. Eli's guide to becoming a middle aged hippie. I think this needs to be an instructional video.

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    Replies
    1. NONONONONONONONO

      Eli's hair is PERFECT the way it is!

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    2. But, just bear with me here, he had FABIO hair? Huh? Meme-worthy.

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  2. I am so happy I have found you. Much needed in my life!!!! You are my nirvana!

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  3. I want to kick "Matt" in the "pants" (see what I did there?) for saying meditation is nonsense. Meditation has been around for thousands of years and has been proven to help people achieve happiness. I've even read about tests done using an MRI on people before and after meditation showing the "happiness" area of the brain to light up during meditation. I take this to heart because I've used meditation to fight off serious depression, worry and anxiety in my life. To this day, I still struggle, but far from where I use to be.

    It's good that it helped you though, you just need to keep it up and not just do it once and never again. You don't need to do it for an hour every day, even 10 to 20 minutes a day would work (even doing it in your office if you have to). You're so stressed out that your mind doesn't know how to keep still, trust me, I know that feeling as do most people. Keep it up man, it may just be your next journey.

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    1. Geez Lee - chill out and leave poor Matt alone - go meditate or soemething . . .

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    2. I will throttle who I want, when I want. You can't stop me. I'll drink expired milk if I want to. What are you going to do about it? You can't stop me. I'm a rebel.

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    3. I stand by my stance that a meditation CLASS is ridiculousness. I don't need to pay someone to take a nap or walk slowly around a room. I can do that in the comfort of my own home... with a glass of wine, sleeping or awake.

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    4. Matt, (if that is you, never seen you post as "Matt Pants" before) you should learn to keep an open mind about things, and maybe try something out before you judge it, or at least research it instead of making ignorant comments.

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    5. I think Matt likes backing up Eli, so he made an account to be Matt Pants for. Which is hilarious.

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    6. Sounds like Lee needs to go on Matt's liquid dinner plan for a little relaxtions.

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    7. I apologize for sounding rude. I'm just a passionate person. And meditation and my family are the reason I was able to overcome some major depression.

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    8. Matt Pants has the right of it. I can reach complete nirvana with wine. Seriously. Moscoto makes everything better.
      Matt Pants for president!

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    9. Who's more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?

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    10. Lee - if you're drinking expired milk that explains SOOOOOOOO much . . . .

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    11. At the risk of disturbing Lee's groovy aura and like-cool vibe, duuuuuuuuuuuude.....I have used meditation for years (how do you think I remain on this side of prison?) to control things...said things generally being the need to cull the herd so to speak.

      Lately, though, I've found that even a few minutes'(2-3 minutes tops) worth of meditation is effective pain management. And by 'effective' I mean it goes from a nearly impossible 15 on a scale of 1-10 to an 11. And, while we're at it, what the eff is it with the whole smiley face/frowny face pain scale anyway? I mean, where's the holymotherofsweetclothespinjeebusiamliterallyonfireandlittleninjasarebeatingmewithtinybaseballbatsallovermybody scale for those of us with chronic pain-related illnesses? The "10" on the current scale is a "Wow, I really hurt" kinda day, while the 1 is..well, it's a distant memory. Sigh........think I'll go think about my breathing..oh, wait, not today..effin' rib joints are inflamed.

      So, Lee...dude, like enhance yer calm and realize some people need wine and some need prescription level pain meds. Whatever makes your karma smile.

      Peace.

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    12. awesomesauciness: I believe you're looking for Allie Brosh's pain scale, linked here: http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/02/boyfriend-doesnt-have-ebola-probably.html

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    13. Brandon, the pain scale I live with would put "I see Jesus..." at about 1 or 2.

      I sure miss Allie...sigh...

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    14. I'm all for whatever freaky $#!7 it takes to get you to your happy place. Lee likes to meditate, although not necessarily in a class setting. Matt explores the deep thoughts of grapes. Awesomesauciness does a little of each, with Rx to back her up. Can't we all just get along? I mean, c'mon, Y'ALL, don't we all know to love our COUSINS the best? And Clearly, We Are the Strangerest Cousins Eli Could Ever Have Hoped For - NOT THAT WE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT HOPING FOR COUSINS, CATHIE!!!!!!

      Namaste. Do the Nasty. Whatever floats your boat. :)

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    15. I am so stealing the "explores the deep thoughts of grapes" line.

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  4. Replies
    1. Second star to the left, straight on 'til morning.

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    2. Do you even KNOW how to get to Neverland? Cause its second star to the RIGHT and straight in til morning. Unless you're trying to get to Sometimesland in which case you're probably right about it being second star to the left

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    3. Those were the directions to Neverhood. It's more fun there.

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    4. You just got schooled son. Andra 1, Eli 0

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    5. But not as fun as Neverwhere/London Below.

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    6. I always wanted a story about the second star to the left, and now that I know it's called Neverhood I want one even more! Eli, you should write that story and then I won't tell anyone you got schooled by a girl

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    7. Neverwhere is CREEPY. I've never been to Neverhood.

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    8. PLEASE let there be dragons on Neverhood . . . . nice ones like Toothless and Pete - not mean ones that eat people.

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    9. Wait, wait, wait, wait!! Wasn't the whole "second star..blah, blah.." thing from Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country?

      Yes, it was. It's OURS - and by "ours" I mean fellow Trekkers.

      Do NOT mess with Trekkers, son. You will lose.

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    10. Shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque. Just sayin'

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    11. I agree, yes to dragons! And awesomesauciness it's actually from Peter Pan! I think it was Kirk? Who was quoting Peter

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    12. Does that mean that Shakespeare now belongs to Trekkers/Trekkies, too? (Undiscovered Country is the best)

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    13. Brandon, Neverwhere isn't creepy, it's simply where people go when they fall through the cracks. And if Richard Mayhew calls it home it can't be all bad!

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    14. Good hell. I meant for this to be in response to Lee's comment. LOOK WHAT YOU'VE DONE.

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  5. See when that would happen to me in my meditation class in college it was because I fell asleep LOL

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    Replies
    1. Brittany brings up a good point here - the college I work at offers Meditation as one of the PE options. Perhaps Eli should have taken it in college.

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  6. As I listened to my extremely Southern aunt argue with her cable provider today about why they haven't made the western channel play only western movies and not TV shows, too, I heard the representative say he was in SLC. I immediately yelled, "I bet he knows Eli!"

    So much for my previous plan on how to keep them from looking to see if she's related to me. Even though my name was never ever mentioned.

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  7. I feel like Matt's glass of dinner, is the best dinner.

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  8. I once lived in an "exclusive" apartment complex (read: "expensive") that offered a cheap yoga class for beginners. I took a towel with me, because I had never yoga'd before, and I handed over my five dollahs. We reached a point where I had no knowledge of how to do the impossible pose the instructor was "guiding" us into, so I just collapsed myself on my towel to wait for one I could do (because I'd kept up, up to that point). THE INSTRUCTOR STOPPED THE CLASS AND SAID WE WOULDN'T CONTINUE UNTIL EVERYONE WAS DOING WHAT SHE WAS INSTRUCTING. I grabbed my towel and walked out. You're not going to YELL at me when you're supposed to be teaching me to Reach Nirvana, and expect me to acquiesce.


    I wonder what the rest of the class ended up being.

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    1. That's a bad yoga instructor.
      It's always acceptable to assume child's pose or something similar when you need a break.

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    2. It sounds like that yoga instructor needed to take a yoga class. Yikes.

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    3. I have since had better classes, like at the Y. Yoga is occasionally my "thing", but not lately. And I knew the instructor was a bad instructor when she yelled at me; my response was to not pose for that abuse. see what I did there? ;)

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  9. lol that is horrible! Especially for something that was for beginners. If she wanted you to try the pose, she could have given you some 1x1 attention to help you figure out how to do said pose. Otherwise, she should have left you alone.

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