I twisted my hands in the fashion of the knot that had lodged inside my throat. My shoes scuffed against each other as I squirmed in the wooden chair.
The teacher was calling on everyone in class one by one.
Five seconds earlier, I had breathed a sigh of relief when she announced that she would be calling on us alphabetically, by our last names. My last name starts with an O so the chances of being saved by the bell were high. And just when the Aggravantes and Alonsos started to sweat, she clarified, smiling ever so meanly, that she would be calling on us alphabetically IN REVERSE.
"Villanueva," she then barked. Z, Y, X and W just fell by the way side. I was in deep shit.
I hadn't done my homework. I didn't even know what it was about. If she called on me, I would have nothing to say. I didn't even have an excuse. The week before I had burst into tears when I had to tell her that the dog ate my homework. This week, the dog was rather behaved, and I still didn't have my homework.
I was convinced that that was the end of me. The teacher would surely shame me to death. The ground would open up and swallow me whole. Unless I died first from sheer fright.
And then a thought, clear as day, managed to carve a path through my panic-muddled mind and break through my fear. "Listen," it said, "you're not going to die. You will get through this day, like you do every day and, tomorrow, you'll be back in the same classroom, in the same chair, listening to a different teacher talking about something else."
I unknotted my hands and cleared my throat.
Anicca, anicca, anicca. I was six and in the first grade. It was then that I became acutely aware of the passing of time and, with it, everything else. Nothing was permanent.
Fast forward to a small, windowless office 15 years later. I was sitting in an uncomfortable metal chair. I had just been enjoying the conversation I was having with the interviewer, when he asked me a strange question: "Where do you see yourself five years from now?"
I was stumped. Was he serious? Did people really plan their lives so far ahead?
Because I had absolutely no plan. So far, I had been following what seemed to be the general template for everybody: kindergarten, prep, grade school, high school, college... I was now in the "get a job" stage and would hopefully move on posthaste to the "get married and have children" phase. Which would entail finding a boyfriend first...
Truthfully, I didn't even think I'd live past the age of 25. Anything beyond that was too old. So, yeah, where would I be five years from now? Six feet under.
Of course I didn't say that. Back then, my filters still worked. But I don't think I ever learned how to give a satisfactory answer to that question.
I still don't have a plan. I never got around to making one. I abandoned the template when I realized I didn't really want a job. Or a marriage. Or kids. The only plans I ever make are dinner plans and travel plans. And I still can't tell you where I see myself five years from now.
My more responsible, more level-headed, and well-meaning friends and family shake their heads at me. After they've sat me down and expressed their concerns, I feel like I've damned myself by not pursuing a career, by not settling down and having children, by my constant partying, traveling and spending till I've run out of money. They make me feel like the grasshopper in that La Fontaine fable that sang all summer and was unsure to survive a harsh winter, unlike the hardworking ant that slaved through the season so that it was well prepared for leaner times.
It's even worse trying to explaining to strangers that you've chosen not to follow the general outline passed on to everyone. I find that it makes most people uncomfortable. They're never quite sure what to make of me; which box I belong in. Perhaps because they thought the template was compulsary and were unaware that they had a choice in determining their own lives?
A friend of mine, similarly perceived as rudderless, finds that he is easier to digest when he tells people that he is "in between jobs". I myself am more palatable when I say that I am "retired". At least it implies that I was working.
One very learned woman whom I met through my travels sneered at me, "How do you live?" Nicolas, my very own partner, has told me that, if he had my life, he would kill himself.
Sometimes, I do wonder if I should start worrying and be more concerned. About my future, about money, and other matters of consequence. The last time I had this crisis of faith, one of my best friends wisely counseled, "You've done quite well without worrying, why start now?"
(It must be said though that, on the flip side, there are more people who have told me, "When I grow up, I want to be Gai Olivares." Which is ironic, because I never grew up. They're the ones with the wife, the kids, the job, the house, and the car. I'm still shuttling from one place to another, with suitcases and boxes strewn everywhere. Maybe I did die when I was 25 and just never got the notice.)
In 2004, I had the privilege to listen to the discourses of a guru who was bringing to the world the method which - supposedly - led Siddharta Gautama to enlightenment. I'm not sure that he meant to endorse my deadbeat ways, but he validated my lifestyle by preaching to live fully in the present, to see things as they truly are (yatha butha) and recognize the impermanence of everything and, thus, not form attachments.
Every second brings with it the opportunity to start anew and he repeatedly encouraged us to "start again".
Last October 1, I started again. With attempting to eat right, drink less, exercise more and - eek! - to stop smoking. On the same day, that guru, my guru, S.N. Goenka was laid to rest in Mumbai.
I am well aware that I am not the ideal spokesperson for Vipassana Meditation, given my hedonistic lifestyle, especially since I never really did cultivate my own meditation practice. But I will always and forever be grateful to Goenkaji for his wisdom and dedication to preaching the laws of dhamma and spreading metta around the world.
For making it alright to start again. And again. And again.
Anicca, anicca, anicca.
(Internet file photo.)
Thank you, Guruji. Sadhu, sadhu, sadhu. Well done, well done, well done.
May all beings be happy.
***
Read more about S.N. Goenka here:
The Man Who Taught The World How To Meditate
I Miss My Guru
***
I wrote four articles on Vipassana. These were the first two, written some time after the course, which I took in October 2004. (I sat at another ten-day course in October 2005 and served at two other courses.)
Confessions of a Noisy Mind
Part 1: Ten Days in a Women's Prison Camp
Okay, so it wasn't really a prison camp but at times it certainly felt like it and I hope that's the closest I'll ever get to experiencing imprisonment.
I had signed up for this meditation course, knowing full well what to expect, having read the Code of Discipline several times over, holding back blind panic and seriously questioning my capacity NOT to go completely off the edge during the ten day course. Ten days. Of no talking, no mobile phones, no eye contact, no physical contact, no reading, no writing, no meals after noon (except for fruit and tea for us new students at 5 PM), wake-up calls at 4 AM (bedtime was around 9:30 PM), and 13 hours of meditation a day.
I wasn't sure why I was doing it, but I thought if I could get through those ten days, I could get through anything.
On the bus to the farm where the course was going to be held, Michelle, my yoga mate, and I attempted to talk ourselves hoarse and texted away furiously on our phones. Surprisingly, there were a lot of male participants (20+ women and around 16 men). Michelle noted, in one of her messages to her boyfriend, that there didn't seem to be too many weirdoes on the bus. But what did we know?
After registration, they segregated the men and women. The "male" and "female" areas were roped off. Dividers were put up in the dining hall and thatch covered the windows that were common to both areas.
By 8 PM, as we were ushered into the meditation hall, noble silence began and wouldn't be lifted until the tenth day.
Left alone with my mind and my senses, I quickly discovered two things:
That I couldn't breathe; and
That my mind was afflicted with Turret's Syndrome.
Seriously.
In the meditation hall, we were told to concentrate on our natural breath. We were supposed to feel it as it flowed in and out of our nostrils, passing over the area above the upper lip, and I was like – "Hang on! I can't feel squat!" I mean, like about a millimeter of air would sniff into my nostrils only to slip right out straight away! At least, that's what it seemed like. No wonder I was so loopy, my
brain was oxygen-starved!
And all my oxygen-starved brain could seem to do, during the first few days, was watch the other women.
I knew they were supposed to be "my kind" but, honestly, I just couldn't relate. I especially could not understand the compulsion they seemed to have to clean. What in the world was up with that? We hadn't been there a day and already they were doing laundry! Everyday, there was a mad rush to do laundry at every conceivable break in our schedule. One night, I swear, at two in the freezing
morning, one of them went out and came back into the dorm with her laundry.
Then, one day, a broom appeared on our veranda. (People are sweeping???!) It boggled the mind. In the bathroom, I caught several women polishing the mirror. I was almost tempted to take names and numbers down in case anyone wanted to fill in whenever our maids went on holiday in May.
My mind was like a rude heckler at a ball game. "What do you think you're doing, you nut," it liked to yell a lot, but in worse words that are not fit to print.
Then there was the bathing. It was freezing in the morning and chilly at night yet most everyone seemed to feel the need to shower at least TWICE a day. One of the girls was at it three times a day! I mean, apart from sleeping, eating and meditating, there really wasn't much to do that would make anyone break into a sweat, so I couldn't understand what was up with all that showering.
I tried to mind my own business, but all that silence only magnified every sound and, as I was assigned the bed right next to the door (and was really sleeping during the day when I was supposed to be
meditating), at night, my Turret mind constantly yelled out obscenities – at the woman who got up at two in the morning to take in her laundry, the two who insisted on taking a shower before the wake-up gong, the ones who dragged their feet on the floorboards and clomped up the steps, the ones who wore funky, synthetic pants that swoosh-swooshed every time they shuffled, and everyone who got up in
the middle of the night to take a leak and slid that loud, shuddering sliding door. At some point, I found myself glaring at everyone in pink and florals and yelling obscenities in my dreams that I worried
that I was yelling them out loud in my sleep and would never know as no one was supposed to talk to me. I was pretty certain everyone thought of me as the grumpiest silent person in the world.
Thank God the meditation teacher assured us, later on, that this was normal and, like all things, would pass. And it did.
In the end, I didn't have as much difficulty as the others with the Code of Discipline, as my mind was used to entertaining itself and kept me constantly amused.
Confessions of a Noisy Mind
Part 2: So Many Questions
After the first few days, the initial shock of silence wore off and I finally found my natural breath. I began to concentrate on the serious task of meditating. While I was familiar with the Code of Discipline, I didn't realize that the method we were learning was what brought Siddharta Gautama to Buddha-hood!
How in the world had I gotten into this?
I had just concluded my second yoga retreat a few weeks earlier and, without thinking it over, continued being vegetarian… and, all of a sudden, I was on the path to enlightenment? I hadn't counted on never having bulalo again. Visions of pochero overrode sensations of breath and, only for about 20 minutes or so, I seriously considered leaving the course.
Then I mulled it over some more and figured out that if the precept that I had to observe to attain enlightenment was to respect life – well, I know I didn't listen much at school but I distinctly remember
that plants always belonged in the "living things" category and I bet that if they put electrodes all over my lettuce, it would be screaming bloody murder whenever I spear it with a fork. I thought of lobbying
for Equal Plant Rights just to see what the vegans would have to say.
Hmm… We'd all probably end up having to eat dirt.
The only argument I can see for being vegetarian is health. Then again, a vegetarian diet usually means carbo-overloading and, usually, to make vegetarian food interesting, you have to load up on the dairy
(milk, cream, cheese, butter…). Hence, all the overweight vegetarians. The only way to be truly healthy is to eat everything raw, but where is the joy in that?
And, as far as respecting life goes, I think exceptions should be made for mosquitoes, flies, fleas and mites of every sort, cockroaches and termites. I mean, how would their eradication upset the balance of nature? It's not as if other insects would mourn the loss, would they?
Hmm… Maybe I should just go for the occasional light bulb moment rather than full-blown enlightenment… Thankfully, the meditation guru did not encourage blind faith, not even in the meditation technique, and welcomed questions. Perhaps, one day, I will present him with my Plant Equality Manifesto and, at the very least, we should get a good laugh out of it. (Yes, I am still a plant killer, a.k.a. vegetarian, but I am committing to it a day at a time. This time, next week, who knows? I may have some dead pig on my plate. Oh dear… This is why I will never be a Buddha.)
Although it may not seem like it, I eventually did get the technique and understood what it was all about in one especially blinding light bulb moment, but that's another column. My negativity manifested itself physically in a very painful, crippling manner and, despite my feeble efforts to get through it with meditative detachment, in the end, the universe conspired so that it was the compassion of the women my Turret mind had previously cursed that eased my suffering. With
the end of noble silence, I discovered that these women were some of the most loving and compassionate souls around and we all became fast friends.
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