failing to meditate in chiang mai
“My mother died when I was 7 years old,” our monk instructor said.
He’d introduced himself as Phra KK: “Phra” meaning monk, and “KK” a nickname from his mother. He began our crash course in Buddhism with this unexpected opener.
“I asked the world, Why?” He paused. “When I got older, I realized, Why not? Everything is impermanent. In Buddhism, you acknowledge a feeling - for example, pain - and you let it go. Don’t follow it. Don’t dwell. Dwelling only causes suffering.”
At an overnight meditation retreat, we changed into uniform loose, white clothing. In silence for 21 hours, with no technology, the world shrank to the retreat center and our own thoughts. Phra KK taught us sitting, walking, and dynamic meditation. Each practice was 20 to 45 minutes, but it felt like hours to a racing mind so used to nonstop city living. I tried to focus my breathing - in and out - but instead was acutely aware of every itch on my skin. In each practice that first day, my concentration inevitably scattered and fractured thoughts flew to random corners of my mind.
On the second day, we woke at 5am to the boom of gongs. We filed outside and sat in clean lines. With birds singing overhead and the rising sun slowly warming my skin, I tried to be still. To acknowledge my thoughts, but not follow or dwell. Again and again, Phra KK told us: Dwelling only causes pain.
But I‘m a dweller of feelings.
Easily elated and devastated. Overwhelmingly aching when I miss someone, something or some time in my life. Before I left, I half-joked that everything in my NYC life must be the same when I return. A half-truth, because of a very real fear that leaving, even for just 7 months, means permanently giving up a life that finally feels like home.
I won’t pretend that this quick retreat was life-changing or that I now have a full grasp of Buddhism and meditation. But it made me deeply reflect on how to accept the impermanence of all things. I‘ll always be my intensely optimistic, feeling self, but I can try to ache a little less about the parts of life happening beyond my control.
