The night is so dark, the sky pitch black, yet polluted by light. There is but a lonely star striving hard to shine and be noticed, but all this light around it is blinding and dominating the senses.
Thinking back, just last week, I lay on the ground and stared up at the night sky. I could feel the slight warmth of the ground, like breathing against my neck. I could hear the creatures of the night that were hidden from sight but audible, and that appeared in the conjurations of my imagination. The world was so still, and the sky above it so immense, fulfilled with specks and dots of light from distant stars. I felt so very small, so very, very insignificant, overwhelmed and awed by the universe and its infinite possibilities. Once or twice shooting stars would dash across the sky, and quickly I would send out well-wishes and loving-kindness to the world and all its creatures before the tail of the shooting star vanishes into the darkness…
In that mesmerising scene, in those moments instilled with subtle stillness and calm, I felt such peace and ease that I have rarely felt in my life. Life seemed to have taken a change, for the better…
Fast forward a week, and I am back in my apartment in the suburbs of Montreal. The week has been filled with flights, family visits, attempts to recount my experience at the monastery, and trying to find my own pace of footsteps in the urban setting where everyone seems always in a hurry. I have not really had the time, or perhaps the inspiration, to sit down and write about my 10 days away at the monastery. Maybe parts of the experience were so profound that I feel that words would scarcely do the experience justice… maybe the stillness and calm I felt overwhelm me are too precious and delicate to capture in words… or maybe I’m still in a daze, still trying to recover from being too silent too long.
Whatever it is, I do feel slower, more reserved in my actions and thoughts. And more and more I am seeing ‘through’ routine, words, actions and responses of people as just the way they are… not good, not bad. People just say what they say. People just act how act. People respond just how they respond. I realise if I could see just that, I can remain more distant and be less caught up in the emotional roller coaster ride that most people involuntarily get on. An angry word… a criticism… a praise… a stroke of one’s self-ego. Just words coming out of someone’s mouth at one point in time. Hear them, acknowledge them, and let them pass the same way that everything else that exists will pass.
Of course, that is not to say I’ve become a piece of log with no emotions or no frustrations. No one can completely shut down their emotions and feelings, likes and dislikes as if it were a computer programme that you can close down with a click. But the more I read up on meditation, the more I practice, even if just for a little while during the morning and evening, the more I realise that things are only so much, that things are all so relative, so really there is little point to get worked up or too involved in something.
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