Trip Report-- Buddhist Meditation

[gol4pro]

Cliff notes; I went to a Buddhist temple, learned how to meditate with a monk, felt awesome, and would recommend trying.

Last night I just kinda had this whim to go ahead and try out some Buddhist meditation, so I went online and found the nearest temple to me. Turns out they have a weekly meditation session that is open to the public, and anyone is envited. Based on the picture of the temple, it didn't really seem like the type of thing that a lot of people would show up to.

So I called a couple of my buddies, and we decided to give it a rip. The website said the session started at 7:00 PM, so we got to the temple promptly at 7:05. When I pulled in, there was only one other car in the parking lot, and that was the one my buddies drove. We kinda thought we had the wrong address, but after checking the directions it was definitely the right place.

We approach the temple, which was really more of a house, and take off our shoes outside. I knock on the door, and there's no response for about 30 seconds. I knock again. Eventually, a monk comes to the door in full attire, and welcomes us in, and tells us to wait 10 minutes (in broken English) and they we can join them then. My buddies and I sit down, and just listen to what the people in the other room are doing. Although we are all well aversed in foreign language, none of us speaks Mandarin, so we obviously couldn't understand what they were saying (I didn't even think it sounded like Mandarin).

After a few minutes, the same young monk comes back and leads us into a room in the back of the house. It's more or less a shrine. The floor is carpeted, with triangular pillows lying against the three other walls (there was a huge statue of Buddha against the fourth), and a large stack of pillows in the corner. There's a small bell in the middle of the room that the older monk uses to start/stop meditating, and the room as a whole smells of insence. It turns out the only people there were the two monks, so I guess nobody else showed up. The monk asked us if we had ever meditated before, and we all responded no, so he taught us.

You sit kind of Indian style, but not quite. Your knees are actually touching the floor, your back is supposed to be vertical, and the rest of your body totally relaxed. The real key is to find comfort in that position. He introduces us to some of the basic tenets of meditation, and we begin doing breathing exercises. After kinda getting the hang of it, he says we're going to do a 10-minute meditation in the proper posture, but he says the most important thing is that we're comfortable.

The first thing I notice is how relaxed I am and how well I can focus, even though the only thing I'm really concentrating on is my breathing. I just feel good all around, and even though after about 5 minutes the posture begins to KILL your legs, it really didn't bother me that much. Eventually, the monk rings the bell again, and asks us how we feel. We repeat the entire process, and by the end of the second session I'm amazed at how relaxed/generally awesome I feel physically and mentally.

He says that's really all he can teach us for one day, but that we should practice the posture at home, and are welcome back any time.

If you have never tried this, I HIGHLY recommend it.