Morning Meditation and Korean Culture (5/22)

M E D I T A T I O N .

[A N    E X C E R P T from my notebook:]

My handy dandy notebook!

"I knew it was early. I knew I should be asleep. I knew I couldn't sleep.

I found myself dressed and in the hall, failing miserably to close the door to my room quietly-- its hinges cried out unhappily through the still and silent hall. When the shriek subsided, I felt the silence and isolation surround me like a hug from the universe, as if to say, "You're the only one here, but I love you."

I knew not where I was going or why, and upon reflection I did not put much thought into who I was or where I was, either. None of this was important; none of it was real or present. What was was my movement through this weird and wondrous world in the wee hours of the morn. 

I thought of wandering through town in search of a mountain to climb-- Korea is 79% mountains, so one must not walk far before running into one. Phaedrus found great meaning on a mountain in America; imagine the meaning I could find here!, I thought to myself. 

The weather seemed to discourage such shenanigans: the wind was blowing constantly and with a worrisome intensity, as if a storm were coming. Something was ominous about the energy that I found outside our building, which encouraged me to head for the main Dharma hall.

Of course I tripped when entering the darkness of the temple. The thud of my foot on the raised floor broke the silence and my stumbling entrance to the hall snapped me out of my grandiose thinking and grounded me instantly in the present. It turns out I did actually have a body that was a part of the world I was fawning over.

After recovering my balance and regaining my composure, I bowed the traditional three prostrations (video) and headed to the altar at the front of the hall. Again, the silence closed in, and I let it consume me as I sat to meditate."

(Of course the hall looked much different in the wee hours of the morn.)

I've "meditated" before, but never really gone anywhere with it-- it's often a very temporary and self-conscious activity, perhaps even contrived. I can never really get my mind around the fact that I'm making myself sit and making myself calm and clear-minded, and all of that making seems to prevent me from getting fully into my meditation.

This time around, that was not the case. The dimly-lit hall and the early morning peacefulness eased me into a meditative state before I even sat in the hall, and although the wild wind outside could be heard throughout the hall, focus and peace of mind came easily to me. The wind, ever the trickster, took to playing the bell that hung from the eaves of the temple; not even that constant cacophony could hold my mind back.

With my body still in the temple, I wandered through thoughts of self, of others, and of the world's existential layers and extant entities; through the positive, the normative, the true and false; and also through as much nothingness and calm emptiness as the somethingness I mentioned.