meditation and monkey brain...

Nine Goldfish in the Zen Aquarium

In Retreat

Monkey-brain is the real enemy to meditation.  I can’t focus on my breath or anything else for more than a few minutes and then I’m thinking about what I had for breakfast, or what the vegetarian meal, at the retreat I am on, is going to taste like.  I ate at the Lotus Tea House on three occasions and even Jane Bond another vegetarian establishment and I actually quite enjoyed the lack of protein and the abundance of kale.  In my inner monologue I would never admit that to another living soul, vegetarian or otherwise.  

The “sausage” in my soup, I was convinced was real meat.  I was later to discover that it was a soy concoction of real meat.  The menu in these places reads “mock” salmon, mock chicken, mock beef.  Now sitting on my ass on a bean filled pillow in a remote area of the country with little or no cell reception listening to a Buddhist monk chant and explaining how I should be focussed on my breathing…in-breathing and out-breathing.  This is my reality.  

I’m stuck with this constant flow of consciousness monkey brain rambling free range from one thought to the next.  I could use a coffee. I had been to Indonesia once.  My wife put ice cubes in her coffee on our first date, but if she truly loves me why did she bring me here, God my ass itches.

Focus damn it!!  I’m trying to relax and be in the moment, at one with myself and the world.  I am on a voyage of inner discovery and tranquility.  That insane Seinfeld episode keeps looping in my head in which Jerry’s dad is screaming, “Serenity now.”

The monk chanting in front of me actually made a lot of sense.  “Satisfaction is characterized by inner peace…”

“When, through rituals and formalities, you create the spiritual space and atmosphere that you are seeking…

“God I want a coffee now.”

“What kind of beans are in the pillows we are sitting on and how long have they been there?  Are they coffee beans? Do they have free will?”

“if you have fear of some pain or suffering…”

I flow in and out…

He was making sense now.  He was explaining, in his very seductive, subdued intonations that our brains are like a jar filled with swirling water.  This jar, in his analogy, has five holes in the lid.  I’m not sure why five.  Does it have to do with the Pillars of Islam, but no this is Buddhism…focus.

“Maybe each hole represents one of the senses.  Do we have six?”

In each hole coloured crystals, or sand or something fine, powder-like, maybe Kool-Aid is dropped in the jar and mixed together.  Eventually all these crystals mix together to make one unified colour and that too eventually settles at the bottom of the jar.  The swirling is the monkey brain that all meditators suffer from, but when the swirling finally stops, and it will, you will find yourself in touch with….yourself.  The purpose of this retreat is to stop the swirling.

I see myself as a tiny speck, a crystal buried beneath many other crystals at the bottom of a huge tank.  I can’t breathe.  The water is moving.  It grows quiet.  There is stillness.  There is a oneness.  A singularity.  A unity.

I HAVE MADE A BREAK THROUGH...


Damn can I have a coffee now!

The monk was perfectly framed by an expansive window over looking a panorama of the river valley below. On the cedar deck behind the holy man a black cat, a bad omen, leisurely stretched and then stalked an invisible creature at the the edge of the deck, stage left, out of my field of vision.  This would soon and likely play out as a major life and death scenario in the deep grass.  So much was happening beyond these walls.  My temporal journey again interrupted by a natural phenomena of “nature versus nature” in the raw elements beyond the deck.  Beyond the babbling monk, mingled in my monkey mind.  Why could I not stay in the moment.  I looked around the room at the few dozen meditators all focussed and apparently “in the zone” with proper lotus position and index fingers touching thumbs.  Like drinking high tea, but we weren’t allowed the scones.

A moment to me is a series of dots on a graph to be extrapolated like a 40’s something gangster shooting an arch with his machine gun across a blank white screen, each bullet hole a point on a graph, an xy axis of time and existence.  Each dot a moment, but then each moment linked to the next to form a sequence, a sequence to form an event. 

My problem is I could not stay with the individual point  because for me each dot formed an array in a multitude of directions each forming a thought.  There was no moment so there was no “in the moment” for me there was only sequence and prediction.  Yet, I sat on my bean bag contemplating dots.  What was the black cat doing? How many dots does that sequence consume?  What were we having for lunch?  Do we even get snacks here?  Are all vegans Buddhists?  Why can't I paragraph properly?

The monk alternated between speaking, chanting and silence and so I began my inner journey.  My wife had instructed me quite firmly and I thought somewhat ironically that I should focus in on the pain and discomfort in order to make it go away.  I thought  that was somewhat like pouring lighter fluid on a candle to put out the flame.

Oddly, my wife’s suggestion had greater merit than I thought possible and I was drawn for once to the rhythm of my breathing.

“The retreat will be silent, and will focus on the practice based on the four foundations of: Mindfulness, Body, Feelings, Mind and Dhamma.”

Dhamma I thought I recognized as a lentil dish from Masala Bay a favourite Indian restaurant.  I was wrong.

Now sounding more commercial the monk intoned,”Read the brochure provided to you in your orientation package for this meditation weekend.  You are also scheduled for guided meditation, yoga, and an evening of Dharma talks.”

We were not one of the residential attendees at the retreat, as we lived so close to the center.  However, upon going home after each day of sessions we were expected to stay in “Retreat Mode” or noble silence as it was called.  I simply found this portion of the retreat to be extremely anti-social in nature and very contrary to my own nature.  My reasoning was that if I was to share a room with forty some other people for whatever purpose at some point I should be able to enter into meaningful dialogue with them.  It only made sense.

During lunch on the second day my nerves were a little frayed by this point after so much relaxation, tranquilly and meditation.  I had a tiny twitch starting under the left eye and something similar was happening in my left hand, my fingers tips were slightly numb.

We were to mindfully approach the kitchen, meaning a gag order not to talk.  There goes that twitch.  Silently we served ourselves our vegetarian lunch of dry granola bars, yogurt, kale, my God so much Kale, and many other things, mainly in Earth tones from nature’s bounty.  In addition to silence we were not to have eye contact.  I had read about that from stories of Gulag survivors.

On one level I rebelled and thought how bogus, but on another level I (and this had to me my inner monologue), “Yes, I know I am here to discover my inner workings; so why should I have the need to talk, or for that matter look at another soul?”  I understood, but had not processed or internalized those messages.

Susan, our hostess, was a tall graceful woman in her mid-fifties who spoke in a soothing voice, who descended to the floor with fluidity of motion. Her lithe body posed perfectly on her yoga mat above which she appeared to levitate by several inches.   I so admired and hated her. She was that perfect.  “Ajahn Kusalo,” she said softly as she began her introductions.  I realized that was a name.  

She continued, “Is a Theravadan Monk, originally from New Zealand and was ordained under the guidance of Ajahn Viradhammo.”

I concluded that “Ajahn” must be either a title or a very common name.

“He spent the majority of his training in Europe and has recently begun to travel.”

I began to fidget as I watched the monk as he sat there, also with perfect posture, listening to Susan’s introduction.  His robes, I observed were more golden than orange.  Like a sunset. It seemed to shimmer in the distance. 

I don’t know what I expected to see.  My mind flashed to old Vietnamese news clips from the “American War” in which Buddhist monks set themselves on fire in protest to the American atrocities conducted in their country.  They too wore orange robes.  How could so much peaceful thought emerge from such horror?  Americans and their foreign policies.  Trying to save the world when they can't save themselves.

Back to the introduction, focus.  

“He came involved in a children’s Buddhist camp in the Amaravati monastery in England and also created an interactive web site about Buddhism for children before entering his monastic life,” and so the introduction went.

The introduction had me in a meditative pose thinking about the monks resume as I also looked sideways at the 40 gallon aquarium that seemed to house, to my count, only nine very content Gold Fish.  They were hypnotic. The bubbles streaming to the surface so beautiful and symmetrical.  I was floating, the water was warm…

“Between the mind and the body there is a bridge, the practice of mindful breathing,” and my mind was off and running to my Mennonite childhood sitting in the front row in a hard pew listening to Pastor Penner speaking about redemption, missionaries and God’s love.  I couldn’t listen to three hours of Sunday school, English service and German service any better as a child then now as an adult in meditation. 

I day dreamed of Jesus rapidly followed by visions of seductive Candy Rivet.  Candy and I had our intimate clandestine rendezvous between our garage and our neighbours garage, a place built for privacy where we frequently met.  Talk about being in the moment!

Candy was stunning, two years older than me and worldly wise…she knew things.

******

Candy purred her good byes as she buttoned her blouse.  “Same time tomorrow,” as she ran off.

Hey, I thought I missed that whole sexual dream sequence with Candy.  My mind must have drifted again.  I felt robbed as I focussed on the goldfish and then the gold clad monk, my body on the pillow, finally all the silent people in the room.  I shook my head, blinked my eyes as if still searching the room for Candy.

Behind the monk the black cat strutted across the deck with a little field mouse in it’s mouth.  Clearly not a vegetarian.

Again I became aware of Ajahn modulating voice bringing me back back from my final episode of Monkey brain for the day.  I was aware of the pain in my back, the itch in my shoulder and his words reached me as I did listen.  

"With mindful breathing you are aware of breathing in and breathing out and if you continue with that concentration you will be able to connect mind and body.  Rarely in our lives do we find mind and body together.  Our body might be there but our mind is somewhere else."

I listened with a profound sense of guilt realizing how poorly I had merged mind and body.  This I could now see was a long and tortuous journey to inner peace.  I was mindful of at least that much.  In noble silence I gathered my things for the evening. I do remain steadfast in the words of the Dalai Lama, “One who smiles has a happy, successful life.”