Chaos Attraction

A Rare Moment of Buddhism

2008-08-02, 8:35 a.m.

I went to the open house at the Shambala Meditation Center this morning. I was bizarrely (a) awake and (b) for the first time in ages on a Sunday at home, not feeling like a slug-o-rama. I had to go look up the location of another meeting I had, saw it was open house day, and...went. Surprise for me.

I'm distinctly not into Buddhism. I don't relate to it, I don't think it's my intended path. Buddhists are going for a mental state that to me, seems pretty distant from most of humanity's behavior, and I don't relate to that whole calm, peaceful, non-attached to anything state of mind. I'm not slagging on it, it's just Not For Me. But...I haven't practiced meditation for crap all summer, haven't been inclined to, don't like meditating alone, and they have free open meditation periods on, among other times, Sunday mornings.

So I went. It was somewhat strange to me, since my previous meditation education isn't that formal. The part that weirded me out was that they made us read aloud (and kind of in a rush?) from a binder for like 15 minutes before meditating. I didn't understand a darn word of it.

The first half hour or so of meditation was pretty good...I didn't really "get there", but I was somewhat enjoying it. But a half hour is about what I do on my own...and after it went over that limit, the squirmies kicked in big time. Erk.

After the hour was up, they had more snacks, followed by a talk about reality, which was interesting. Kind of a cross between the "there's one reality" and the "everyone has their own reality" arguments, somehow.

After that, I went and did errandy things, and then went to the local writers' group meeting. Everyone at that was going to the local wiki picnic- "hey, wanna go?" So I went along. Ran into one of my old roommates, but as usual we didn't talk. (To be fair, she's not chatty.) I also ran into a guy I was friends with online in college. I never quite know what to make of those moments, running into old friends. I miss what it was like back then, but somehow I can't go back to how it was for shit any more. I hate that.

I also ended up hearing a conversation with a guy who was moving out of town after this, and he was going on about how there's nothing here for someone who (a) isn't in college, and (b) isn't married with kids, hence why he was moving. I can't deny he has a point.


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