At the centre in Montebello, we had to fill out a form
verifying that we were at an adequate level of health. Once again, I had to
fork over details on my previous eating disorder history. I became all red and
flustered. Despite the doctor’s note I’d begged an oblivious Halifax doctor to
sign, I was certain the organizers would decide that my prior crazy times made
me unfit to complete the course.
Before going to our rooms, we had to hand over all our electronics, phones, writing materials and objects of spiritual significance. Rebelliously, I clung to my hot pink fanny pack which the Boatman had bought for me as a going away present. Otherwise I broke no rules.
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The End.
(Stay tuned.)
On the back of the form I had to provide a short
autobiography. I wrote that I was a writer and then proceeded to write the most
boring story of my life I have ever come up with.
I was born in Kingston, Ontario. I had an active childhood. I studied creative writing and translation. Apparently, this
didn’t improve my writing skills very much. I have extensive experience working with people with
disabilities. Blah blah blah. Once I had an eating disorder but now I’m totally cured. Please let me do the course. The end.
I handed in my form and never heard about it again.Before going to our rooms, we had to hand over all our electronics, phones, writing materials and objects of spiritual significance. Rebelliously, I clung to my hot pink fanny pack which the Boatman had bought for me as a going away present. Otherwise I broke no rules.
Me and my dorky fanny
pack. My goal is to bring back the fanny pack during my trip to India. It cost
6 dollars at the Park Lane Mall, Spring Garden Road.
That night, we ate our last dinner for ten days. The Buddha
never ate meals after noon and so now we were all going to try and be like the
Buddha. New students were allowed to have fruit and tea at 5 p.m. but otherwise
we were out of luck. On Day Zero, however, there was an enormous platter of
hummus and raw vegetables and an abundant salad bar that reminded me of the
buffet at the all-inclusive I’d stayed at in Mexico. I loaded up my plate to
mountainous heights and sat at a table of girls who all looked under 25.
“There are a lot of cute guys over there,” said one skinny
blonde girl. “I just love guys with long hair. She stood up and went to the hot
drinks table where she stirred some instant Maxwell house coffee into a mug of hot water.
She can’t be any more than 21, I thought. “How old are you?”
I asked when she got back.
“21,” she said.
After dinner, I was relieved to see a fellow Ashtangi from
Montreal. She was a hard-core vipassana meditator, having completed 20 and
30-day sits in much more austere centres in South America. I ran up to her and
hugged her, forgetting the rules that we weren’t allowed to touch. She didn’t
mind.
We circled around the trails of the centre and she answered
all sorts of questions. Her commitment to the practice was clear. She said
there was no other kind of meditation like Vipassana. It totally transformed
her life. I love a hard-core
practitioner, having just completed seven years of hard-core Ashtanga yoga
practice myself. She was sitting this ten-day course as a pre-requisite for a
30-day course Brazil the following month.
In Brazil, everything was way less cushy than here in
Montebello. They went days without showers and their beds were all squished
together. There were no little shelves to leave your folded clothes and at each
meal all they got were tiny handfuls of peanuts.
I felt mildly guilty about my massive pile of vegetables and
my trepidation about missing ten days of dinner.
But not everyone can turn into a Buddha all at once.
At 7 p.m., the Noble Silence would begin. We were not even
allowed to look up at each other’s faces. I would prove to be rather horrible
at this.
After they explained all the rules, segregation of men and
women began. No more cute boys with long hair to look at. We went to the
meditation hall where we put together our draft configurations of cushions and
prepared for our first meditation instruction. This began with piped in Pali chanting
by S. N. Goenka. Each emphatic melodious phrase ended with a somewhat half-dead
drone. Then there was a big pause. It seemed like maybe it was over, but oh no,
on he went with the next line. On and on and on.
Mr. Goenka. Charming
fellow, I would later discover
I found myself thinking of the 21-year-old blonde girl and
her cute boys with long hair. I imagined everyone I knew coming across Goenka’s
voice for the first time and had to repress some irreverent laughter. Had I
known how little laughter was in store for me in the days to come, I might have
done a better job savouring it. The End.
(Stay tuned.)
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Twitter: @mypelvicfloor
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