the way to enlightenment

fresh off of 6 days of silence and well... i have a lot to say! I spent the last week under the auspices of Venerable Nyanadarsi, a high ranking Malaysian monk who is a master of Vipassana meditation...

now, for the uninitiated i will try as I go to break down this time-honored path to enlightenment in terms that the average lay person can understand... isn't that what all enlightened masters have the task of doing... now, I'm getting ahead of myself, you will need to be the judge of how far along the path i've come in the last week...

so let's get started... first Vipassana as far as I can deduce means "time out" in Sanskrit. remember "time outs" when you got in trouble as a kid... you had to go sit in the corner, you couldn't do anything, you just had to sit there... maybe if your mom was feeling a little compassion she would let you pace back and forth but you could not for any reason leave that area until whatever time limit (based on the severity of your infraction) was sentenced...

well that's a lot like how I spent the last 6 days... it seems that the Buddha felt that human kind wasn't getting it so he put his disciples in a permanent "time out" and their disciples passed it on all the way down the line, till we get unsuspecting eager for an authentic "Buddhist" experience foreigners actually paying to participate and try to learn the art of being in a "time out."

now, a little shout out to my mom here because well I turned out to be a relative natural... you see, I was the only white person and again everyone was extremely polite on the outside but i know they were wondering how long this yankee would last... we Americans with our hedonistic ways and lack of spiritual discipline... well they had no idea how much trouble i got into as a kid... it may have been my first Vipassana retreat but it certainly wasn't this cowboys first time to the "time out" rodeo if you know what i mean...

now, there were a couple of things that i didn't quite understand... again the ultimate purpose of Vipassana Meditation is enlightenment... and who doesn't want that? but there are a couple of inhibiting things that I think explain why only 1 person every few thousand years actually attains it...

1. you have to get up at 0400 (and yes Jon and Jason, that is in the morning) to start looking for it...

and 2. after sitting until you have no feeling in your legs and your back feels like a mad scientist has stuck you with razor sharp pins in every pain center you have and just left them all there, you have to walk in a straight line back and forth, back and forth, eyes low, and here's the key... as slowly as possible for hours on end... i'm talking mega slow motion slow. i guess the idea is that is you are really quite and you go really slow, you just might be able to sneak up on "enlightenment." However, i feel that they have greatly underestimated the sneakiness (Jon that's for you) of enlightenment itself... because even though i was quite, enlightenment probably saw me coming from a mile away and had all day to move out of my way...

but that didn't spoil my spirits, i found that i had other things to worry about... like the other rules... no talking, okay hard but i can do it... up at just after 4am, again seemed like i was still getting up at the end of yesterday but i could hang... however we only had 2 meals a day one at 6:30am and the other at 10:30 am.... that means a lot of time with no food... now i don't eat a lot but i eat fairly often, and for those of you close to me... you know that i am a true case of jeckel and hide when it comes to having not eaten for too long a period of time... now I was determined to do my best but i had flash visions of me losing it at about 8:30pm and before I knew it i was stealing the venerable's robe and using it to scale down the side of the 4 story building we were sequestered in and hoofing it to the nearest 7-11 for a big packet of the latest in hostess goodies.

some of the other rules...

1. no killing any living beings (did pretty good, but the first night some ants found their way to some crumbs on my plate and before i could stop myself I sent them to an early next life)

2. no eating at incorrect times... (i have to admit, for the sake of everyone there but mostly mine, i snuck packets of crackers from the afternoon tea table back to my room just in case... and on more than one occasion... well at least the venerable still has his robe)

3. no inappropriate sexual pleasures... since when is masterbating inappropriate... and besides 6 days... come on we are still human aren't we... (that one seemed more like a "try your best but we totally understand" than an actual rule)

4. no singing, or dancing.... (i would have made it on this one, but literally the last night just before going to bed, realizing i was going to make it, i broke out into a personal version of We are the champions, in the singular... and did a little jig... seemed more like the spirit took over, that can't be my fault)

5. and last but not least... no lying (again you would think in a silent retreat this would be easy, and it was but after the closing we had one group meal and we were allowed to talk... almost no-one spoke english but with much effort one of the guys asked me a very labored "did you come all way America for Vipassana retreat?" and i'm sorry but it just seemed like the right, and by right i mean "easiest," thing to do, to say yes... i'm just not sure that I wouldn't still be there if i told him that actually i had no idea i would be doing this and if it hadn't been for about 443 things falling into place there's no way it would have happened... you see first there was... (you can see my dilema and i'm sure you would agree i took the high road)

so am i enlightened?... i don't know.... what I do know is that as enticing as the idea of "enlightenmkent" is, it's a relatively tough sell. it's not the enormous odds that we are up against... people love the idea of possibly beating insurmountable odds, that's the whole basis of the lottery... but the difference is, every once and a while people do actually win the lottery. And when we can see billy bob from somewhere in the outback of okalahoma with his missing teeth, overalls that he's been wearing since he was 12 and 8-10 kids all under the age of 5 holding an oversized check in the amount of $72 gazillion dollars, we say to ourselves, hell if he can win maybe i can too and it's off the the nearest convenience store to roll the dice one more time...

but when's the last time you actually saw an enlightened being... i know we have pictures and shrines to the most famous ones but really since JC (jesus Christ) who is on that list? Now i'm not saying that there aren't any, i personally believe that there are more than ever before... it's just that something about self-realized beings, they just don't seem to want the publicity, chosing to live simple lives in caves or in remote villages in India or Brazil... but either way, to the untrained eye, the outer picture doesn't necessarily leave an unquenchable desire for the lay person to throw there life savings (lottery reference) at their shot at the title.

so here's my suggestion... sell enlightenment as the by product of getting an amazing set of abs. I mean sitting still is an amazing core workout and only eating two small meals a day, there is no way to not tighten up... and in this regard... well... I'm a believer.... just look at what it did for me.


and yes that's me (kim, the path to enlightenment is always top lit)




so i may not be enlightened but Vipassana has me looking ABSolutely fantastic!

namaste my friends,
swami j