The Monk's Message

This past fall, I spent three months in Thailand.  For some reason, there is one part of that trip that my mind keeps revisiting.  It wasn't the time spent partying in Bangkok, or the thousands of miles motor-bike trip across Northern Thailand, or even the weeks that I spent island-hopping in South Thailand.  I keep thinking about the two weeks that were spent at a meditation course.

When I first thought about attending a meditation course, I got so excited!  Ooooo... a Mediation Course!  How very Eat, Pray, Love!!!  I imagined myself to be just like Elizabeth Gilbert: a world traveler who was taking time out of my busy, chaotic, American life to find inner peace, wearing all white, sitting in a perfect meditation pose, with my mind thinking nothing but om...

Ha.

Yeah.

Right.

I had never realized how incredibly difficult clearing my mind could be.  Or how hard it would be to deal with my own thoughts... every second of every minute of every hour of every day... for TWO-WHOLE-WEEKS.

I would sit and try to shut my mind off and it would not work.  I would prep myself and give myself pep-talks.  "Okay, Dee, you can do this!  You just have to clear your mind... think about nothing... absolutely noth--- Oh man... getting a cramp... I guess that's why all these Buddhists do Yoga... and I guess that's why they are so skinny... Even though they eat a lot of rice... How do they stay so skinny by eating all of that rice???  Oh crap! Meditation... Okay, you can seriously do it this time!"

I would look at a fellow meditation student who was so perfectly peaceful and I would get so envious.  Her posture was perfect, she looked serene, and her white clothes never got dirty.

Meditation is hard.

But, regardless of this struggle, my absolute favorite part of the entire course was waking up at 5:00 a.m., groggily putting on my white attire, walking up a steep hill in chilly mountain air, seating myself in lotus position, and listening to the cutest and wisest monk that I have ever met.  Despite the fact that it takes me forever to wake up without coffee, the minute that he would start talking, I would be alert and hooked onto every word that he said.  He would tell stories about events that happened to him and people that he knew and even with our cultural differences, all of his lessons seemed to strike a chord with me.

There was one lesson that has stayed with me and this is the one that keeps replaying in my head.  He talked about how nothing in life is permanent; everything changes.  I didn't know how to take this at first.  Nothing is permanent; everything changes.  Obviously this makes sense.  But the thought that maybe something like love is not permanent was slightly disconcerting to me.  So, I listened as he explained it even further.

He mentioned that love was, in fact,  impermanent.  A mother's love is not the same as the day she finds out that she is pregnant.  It grows every day that her child grows.  The love of a couple does not stay the same.  As the couple experiences life together and goes through good and bad times, the love changes.  It can become stronger with time and as we all know, sometimes it can fall apart.  Nothing is permanent, everything changes.

He talked about good times.  We love those good times and wish that we could hold onto them and make them last forever.  And as much as we hate the fact that the good times are impermanent, it is such a relief when you think about the bad times and that they, too, will flee.

During this lesson, I couldn't help but be amazed!  Wow!  If I could train my brain to think this way, how much more would I enjoy my life???  To truly enjoy EACH good moment, and hold onto it, and squeeze every ounce of beautiful sparkle that it has... because it won't always be there.  And for each moment that is hard and trying, to know that this moment will pass... eventually... no matter how long it takes... and I'll be a stronger, healthier, and better person because of it.  Maybe it would help eliminate worrying about the silly things in life that don't really matter.

I still have so much work to do with this lesson but his message was just too good not to share.



- Dee :)

My favorite monk and I :)