All Over the Map - Laura Fraser [61]
After I try these meditations with Sharon, I have to admit I feel calm and refreshed, a state that lasts even through the lines and delays at the airport. Once home, I take her advice to meditate every day for fifteen minutes. It is a lot harder without her leading me through, like trying to do yoga by yourself at home. During the first few sessions, I am angry that my timer is broken (it isn’t; it just seems as though time has stopped). My back hurts, my legs fall asleep, my nose itches, and my brain goes racing all over the place. I feel bursts of sadness, hilarity, recrimination, and despair. But I do sit it out. Occasionally I reach a space where I feel as if I am wearing internal noise-canceling headphones. During one session, I have a clear image of my mind as a cluttered attic, furnished with all sorts of old petty grievances, grudges, and fears. I am starting to clear away some of the debris, giving myself room to move and breathe. And at night I begin having dreams where instead of flipping out for getting a parking ticket or having my credit card rejected, I let my anger go. Clearly, something is going on in my unconscious that my waking mind doesn’t yet grasp.
Eventually, I notice a few times when my mind presses the pause button on its own. When I lose my purse, I check the car before panicking. I pass an adorable pair of emerald green sandals and hear a little voice say, “I have enough shoes.” Waiting in line with an inept clerk, I don’t have cartoon flames shooting from my head, I just suppose the poor guy is having a trying day. Distressed about a situation with an article I’m working on, instead of snapping at the fact checker, I ask if I can call her back later. When I e-mail Evan and he doesn’t respond, I don’t immediately think, “That close-minded asshole probably thinks I’m too fat or too old, so fuck him;” instead I think, well, maybe he’s got something else going on, I just don’t know and we’ll see.
After a month, I am so excited by my newfound patience that when I get an e-mail announcing a ten-day silent meditation retreat, I don’t pause, I sign right up.
AS SOON AS I arrive at the Spirit Rock meditation center in Marin County, epicenter of the New Age, I realize that once again, I’ve made a mess. I’ve failed to think things through, I’ve made a ridiculous decision, and now I am being punished for my impulsiveness. The retreat center is pretty enough, with hiking trails in the hills and a lovely meditation hall, but the place is full of aliens, people who affect Asian robes, beam goodness, and shuffle around looking at their feet. Meditation may help me become a more patient person and increase my chances of finding a partner by forty-five, but I’m definitely not going to find a guy to fall in love with at a Vipassana retreat, especially since I won’t have a chance to even speak to anyone. I’m supposed to stay here—completely silent!—for ten days.
The first day isn’t so bad. They assign each of us a chore—mine is cleaning the kitchen floors, which involves slopping a satisfyingly loud amount of water around in the quiet atmosphere—and we meditate for several sessions, followed by a dharma talk by one of the retreat leaders, who surprises me with his dry and delightful sense of humor. At the end of that day I feel virtuous and refreshed—and quite ready to go home.
That night, sharing a cell-like dorm room with a frizzy-haired woman in Guatemalan pants, I resent the slurpy tooth-brushing and grooming noises she makes and the rude and selfish way she keeps her light on until