# Chapter 6: Beginning Meditation *Ding... Ding... Ding!* "Sigh." I let out a gush of breath from my mouth. I opened my eyes to the sunlit room. I took a few more conscious breaths before transitioning back into my open-eyed reality. My hips and low back ached, so I stretched my legs long and shook them to disrupt the stiffness. I had only been meditating for a few weeks, but I felt I was progressing. I was able to follow my breath for almost a whole minute before the thoughts of my life flooded in. I was getting better at concentrating, and I felt a deep satisfaction and aliveness when I sat still and turned my focus toward the subtleties of breath, sensations in my body, and thoughts in my mind. > [!insight] The Real Me > It's as if the real me is floating above all the transient phenomenas of reality, and I can observe, undisturbed, the flow of life occurring inside me. --- ## The Book There's something to this meditation practice, I thought—some esoteric wisdom that I wanted access to. I fanned open the first book I ever bought on the subject, titled *Mindfulness, In Plain English*, written by a monk named Gunaratana. He would go on to explain that through the practice of mindfulness meditation, one wakes up to the truth of one's existence: a realization that the self is far more expansive and free than the isolated ego—which I had known myself to be since birth. > [!warning] Hidden Practice > Any spirituality other than the conservative Catholicism I was brought up in was uncharted terrain, taboo even. I hid my Buddhist books in my dresser to keep them hidden from my grandmother. I feared she wouldn't love me the same way if I renounced Christ as my savior. --- ## The Goal I got up from the floor and threw the pillow back on my bed. I vowed to sit twenty minutes a day, determined to access this state of enlightenment—the ultimate goal of meditation—that I kept reading about. I understood enlightenment to be some extreme state of joy and freedom, where I would no longer be subject to the sufferings of human life. For all I knew, upon being enlightened, I would cease to even exist in the world as I knew. I read about all these Buddhist sages who had escaped the cycle of birth and death—no longer to be born again. I thought life was a miracle. Shouldn't I be grateful to be alive? Why did I want to escape the world? --- ## Understanding Dukkha At twenty-two, my understanding of suffering reflected my age—naive and shallow, yet authentic. > [!note] Dukkha > Suffering translates from the Sanskrit word *Dukkha*. Buddha said it is apparent that suffering is part of our human condition—one of the undeniable aspects of existence. > > Suffering can be described as an inherent dissatisfaction: always chasing the future, regretting the past, or simply not getting what one wants, trying to control the uncontrollable, or wishing things were different. Examples of Dukkha: - Stubbing your toe in the middle of the night — Dukkha - Losing a loved one to cancer — Dukkha - Missing the bus in the morning — Dukkha - Rain when you expected sun — Dukkha - Eating fast and feeling too full — Dukkha I suffered every day working as a laborer for my uncles. I suffered more living in constant concern for securing a financial future. My suffering lay in my ignorance of having no idea who I really was or why I was placed on this earth to begin with. I was faced with the pressure of choosing some cookie-cutter job that would become my career, which would then afford an American life. > [!reflection] The Alternative > Enlightenment seemed to be a worthwhile endeavor if it meant something more magical than all the hubbub of society. If sitting still and concentrating on my breath is what I had to do to get enlightened, then that would be my practice. --- ## Waking Up to Breath Waking up to my breath was a giant leap of progress. I remember sitting in the woods one summer day meditating. I heard my timer go off, but I felt so serene sitting there in the sun with a steady breeze massaging the back of my neck that I decided to sit a few minutes longer. It was then that a bee came buzzing right beneath my nose. A sudden bolt of panic shot through my body, but I remained still, trusting the bee wouldn't cause any trouble. > [!magic] The Breakthrough > In that moment, I could visualize my stream of breath causing a current in the air that the bee would then navigate through. Suddenly I could *feel* the current of my breath brushing my nose as I exhaled and inhaled. > > Before, I could not sense any physical sensation of breath, but after my visualization with the bee, I could feel my breath happening at a very subtle level. It was like magic to me. I became so excited—it was as though my nose had been clogged for so many years, and in that moment, it had cleared. --- ## Breath as Companion I then felt as though wherever I went, my breath came with me: - Stuck in traffic — with my breath - Having an argument with my grandmother — with my breath - Falling asleep — with my breath - Waking up — with my breath I felt as if I was clued in to a secret technique of living that I would call: *paying attention to my breath.* --- ## The Traffic Test One day I was driving with my aunt and cousins through Manhattan to go see a Broadway play. The traffic on the West Highway was intolerable. Horns were blaring, brake lights were blinking, and the summer heat was sweltering. The smell of the air conditioning was nauseating, not to mention the stop-and-go march of the cars, causing a constant jerk every thirty seconds or so. Everyone in the car complained without reservation. "This is horrible. You can never drive anywhere in this damned city," my aunt cried. "We're never going to get there. Let's just go home," my cousin Christina pleaded from the back seat. I was behind the wheel, gazing out toward yet another red traffic light, with a smile of contentment on my face as I watched the very next in-breath travel up my nose, linger for a moment, and fall back out in exhalation. > [!practice] The Challenge > In this steady concentrated state, I found no reason to complain. The traffic was testing my ability to breathe and be content in the moment. So I took the challenge on. The novelty of my newfound awareness made for a powerful aid. I had woken up to a different dimension of life, and the mundane reality of traffic seemed peripheral to the central stream of energy moving in and out of my body. Waking up to the power of my breath was just a small stepping stone on my larger path of spiritual evolution. --- ## New Creativity As I started meditating more often, a new force of creativity started waking up inside me. There was something unique and beautiful that I began to see of myself—a beauty that I shared with all of existence. I began to grow more curious of this romantic feeling which stemmed from the center of my heart. --- *Next: [[Ch 7 - Brian and Emily Rooftop]]