Ten days with the Buddha 3/n

I forced myself to sleep at 9 pm that night. I have never slept so early in the last 30+ years. I was scared that if I don't I wouldn't be able to wake up at 4 am the next day. I didn't want to yawn away to glory in front of 90+ meditators in the group meditation hall. At first, I thought it will be challenging to sleep so early but it didn't take too much effort. I didn't have my usual distractions - the phone, music, books & my cats. The only hi-tech gadgets we were allowed to carry were a torch and an alarm clock.

At 4 am the next morning, my alarm woke me up along with the signature gong that they play on loud speakers. The gong is so loud and repeats so many times that you'd wake up even if you hit snooze on your alarm clock. I woke up at the first gong because I was super excited to learn new things. I showered and I was ready for the first session. At 4:30, you are supposed to assemble in the meditation hall to start the course, the first session ends at 6:30 am after which you are served breakfast until 7:15 am. If you don't show up before 7:15 am, you will starve until lunch, which is at 11 am. Yes, lunch is at 11 am, welcome to the Matrix. 

What time is dinner then? 

You don't get dinner. Lunch is your last meal. 

You get snacks at 5 pm and that is it. So, I don't know what you will gain after this course, but you will surely lose some weight. I lost 2 kg. Couple of my friends from the same batch lost around 3 to 4.5 kg after the course. Amaze!

The 4:30 am session was fun. I was so focussed that I didn't yawn even a single time. It was probably also because I was sitting in the 3rd row and the teacher could see me whenever he opened his eyes. For those 2 hours, I pretended like I was a Buddhist monk in the Himalayas who has razor sharp focus and is in complete control of his mind. At 6:30 am, hunger took over my mind and I ran to my room to get my plate and tumbler and rushed to the dining hall. At this point, you have no preferences no matter your background, you will be so hungry that you will eat anything. But I must say, the food was mind blowing!

Came back to the dining hall for lunch at 11 am and guess what? They have mudde and THE best South Indian food you will ever eat, for lunch, everyday. Did I miss non-veg? Only for the first two days. After that, I kind of started liking everything veg. I started tasting everything I was eating. I don't remember tasting anything I was eating before this day, I was just eating. But now, I was able to differentiate between how different vegetables taste different - it probably happens through observation. Again, you don't have your phone or laptop or tv while you are eating. You are only staring at the wall and eating your food. You can't even look at who is sitting next to you. Well, you can, but what's the point, you can't talk to them. So you just focus on eating. And you start liking veg food.

Learning 1 : Veg food is tasty too. Vegetables have their unique tastes, they are good. 

In the first half of the day, you have to meditate for 5 hours. It sounds easy, but to not do anything and just observe your breath for 5 hours is tedious, trust me. Especially, when you are introduced to your monkey brain. The human brain, supposedly the most advanced brains among all species, cannot follow a simple instruction of observing your natural breath for a few seconds. For the first few seconds, you are with your breath and later you are either in the past or in the future. 

Ohhhh! How many people must be missing me? I am super important, no? Now people will know my true value, won't they? On day 11 I want to go to this amazing place and belt biriyani. Shah uncle was so amazing in the play, I want to watch more of his plays. I hope my monkeys are doing alright. When am I going to start the cat shelter? How much money would I need to do that? I will need a lot of people to run it. Wait, I am supposed to be observing my breath. I came here for a purpose. You f monkey brain, how will you ever follow instructions? How will you do this for the next 10 days? What a fucking failure of a brain!

Our brain is shit, at least mine is. In the 60 odd mins that I was asked to observe my breath on day one, I probably had a few seconds when I did observe. Baaki time idhar udhar, yeh karna hai woh karna hai, isko kya bolna hai, woh kya bolegi and so on.

Learning 2 : Sitting idle and getting your mind to not wander is super tough. To not do anything is the hardest thing to do.

By the end of the day, I have a few learnings and absolutely no success in training my brain to focus on one thing. What a shame!

To be continued...