Friday, May 17, 2013

Losing Your Mind: The Meditative Skeptic

I've been at Shoshoni for about a week and a half now. I've swept (I'm now an awesome sweeper). I've vacuumed. I've sat in a temple and thought about cheese meditated.
I've come to some conclusions: Miso ghee is awesome. Tight rope walking is hard. There are parts of everything you should be skeptical about. Also, the mind is a cool thing.

Once upon a time there was a young blond from the East Coast. She had this dream that one day she would change drastically and be such a skilled socializer that she would fit in...once she moved to an ashram and let go of all anxious thoughts and wore a bunch of hippie clothes.

Once upon a time there was a young black-haired woman who voyaged to the West Coast. She had a dream that 1) Aliens ate her and once she woke up she dreamed that she would fit in...once she moved back to the East Coast and could drink buckets of coffee and shop with her friends and have lazy F.R.I.E.N.D.S. marathons.

Sure, there are the lucky few who don't fit in, and then BAM they join cross country or something that will make your abs look equally good and they're all "I'm home."

You lucky bastard, you.

But hey, we're not going to go all "woe is me" here. Okay, look, we're gonna be a little "woe is me." I've only got two more months of being a teenager (eek!). I'm gonna revel in it. 

Last semester, I had an amazing literary theory teacher. She was passionate about what she taught. She always read with a pen in hand. She was enthusiastic about every theory. She also admitted that through each literary lens, you were missing something.

This isn't just shit English majors say. We all want to find some fun-sized catch phrase that expresses the meaning of life. The closest I've gotten to that is "life is hard, but life is harder when you're dumb."
Working on the self is great. Opening some Chakras never hurt anyone (actually I've been told it's quite painful, but let's pretend that never happened). But if you focus only on the self, you're going to miss some relationships. If you focus on pleasing that hot guy with the surfboard, you're going to miss some understanding about yourself.

People tend to gravitate towards one thing; you don't want to be too over the place. I used to think (okay, it was yesterday) that I couldn't stay focused on one thing for years and years because I didn't want to work hard. Was I gaffawing at meditation just because it was challenging?
Yes and no. Meditation is hard. It's a good practice to get better at. There are some very useful mind-calming tools that help when life throws some giant volleyballs at your head (yay middle school). But does that mean you should meditate "all day erryday"?
Try it for a day and let your hips get back to me.

The phrase "have you lost your mind?" exists for a reason. The mind can be a beautiful place. Logic is fun (although Sudoku is not). Letting go and analyzing don't have to contradict each other. Much. Being too much of anything is kind of a buzz kill.

It's best not to blindly follow one thing. There is always something positive in one's skeptical nature.

Everything is best in moderation. Even moderation.

Namaste.

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