At age eighteen, I moved back to the Philippines after twelve years of living abroad (in Paris, New York and Hong Kong, to be precise). The circumstances surrounding this home-coming were pretty extreme, all things considered, and without going into detail, let’s just say that if it hadn’t been for Chogyam Trungpa and Thich Nhat Hanh, I would have had much rougher a ride.
It was armed with my little orange book, Meditation in Action, that I set out to enroll at the University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City. Having attended private schools all my life, I was little prepared for the hot mess that was registration at UP in 1992. I vaguely remember standing in line for endless hours in the heat, to be finally told that such and such class was full or that I was in the wrong line.
The exoticism of the experience quickly wore off and gave way to extreme bouts of impatience, agitation and self-pity. This is where Chogyam Trungpa’s humble masterpiece came into play. All I did was basically read it, then apply it precepts while standing in line. This, I believe, is what kept me from going insane. That book, together with Thich Nhat Han’s Peace is Every Step, helped me get my meditation practice started.
This differed from the coping mechanism I had previously used, which was to disassociate from the event because it was so unbearable (a technique I had used prior to reading these books, with poor results – see previous article entitle “Two Hungry Wolves”).
On the contrary, mindfulness, which was Thich Nhat Han’s practice, and meditation, brought you back to the inexorability of the present moment: at any given time, that is really all there is, and what happens before or after no longer carries a hold on you.
Now it would be a lie to tell you that ever since that time long, long ago, I have been practicing meditation daily, or even regularly. This is far from the case. To be fair, I did spend some time meditating sporadically throughout college, but more in a community setting such as Sokka Gakkai or at the Taoist temple, or at some wealthy Buddhist woman’s living room (God knows how I would end up there, but I did, over and over again. I can’t even recall the name of these people who hosted us). No, when I really dove back into my practice it was years later, when I was back in New York City, and my heart had been broken. That’s when Pema Chodron came to the rescue. My real, solid practice was anchored only three years ago, when I started to practice Reiki. Meditation plays an important role in energy healing.
I won’t be listing here the numerous benefits of meditation, since you can pretty much read that anywhere as it has gotten pretty mainstream. What I can suggest, is to start small, with as little as one minute per day. Yes, just one minute of simply sitting with your back straight and your body relaxed, where you focus on your breath and let your thoughts come and go, without getting attached or forming judgements. From there you can grow your baby practice to two minutes, then three. See how that goes and let me know.
Suggested readings to get started with meditation:
Chogyam Trungpa, 1969: Meditation in Action
Thich Nhat Hanh, 1990: Peace is Every Step
Pema Chodron, 1996: When Things Fall Apart
Drop me a line about your experience at reickicebu@gmail.com
]]>