I find it salutary sometimes to plug into a guided meditation, particularly first thing in the morning when my brain is juttering left and right, up and down, here and there and everywhere. I have a meditation app on my phone that I use. I'm careful not to buy into the messages too deeply because, really, who are these people? They're people who think they're wise and smart enough to upload a guided meditation onto a free app. Some of them have been very helpful to me. I'm sure some of them are completely selfless, only wanting to help . . . while making a little coin with a subscription. And I'm sure some of them are full of crap. If I ever decide to upload a Seaweed Meditation I'd make it a fantasy of sarcastic suggestions.
For instance today I listened to a guided meditation called The Course of Miracles. Maybe. Maybe it was called something else. Fuck do I know? The woman had a pleasant voice, calm and measured, as she prepped me for the meat of the meditation which was repeating a mantra 108 times and I'm not making that up. 108? That's the most random number ever and I have no idea how she kept track of how many chants she had gotten through. Was she counting? Maybe she hires someone to sit there and count for her. Maybe she has one of those little clickers that baseball umpires use to keep track of balls and strikes. I don't see how she could pay attention to the chanting sounds while simultaneously counting. What if she falls short or goes over? 100 bottles of beer on the wall, 100 bottles of beer!
(OK, I found this: "The renowned mathematicians of Vedic culture viewed 108 as a number of the wholeness of existence. This number also connects the sun, moon, and earth. The average distance of the sun and moon to earth is 108 times their respective diameter." I mean, can you believe this shit? You still don't believe that there isn't some weirdo higher power controlling things? You think these two numbers are just cosmic coincidences, spun up out of nowhere? I feel sorry for you.)
Her voice was pleasant. She repeated the mantra as sort of a dyptich: first she chanted without inflection and then her voice rose on the third sound. To me it sounded as if she was saying: "Numb your hiding gecko" although the gecko might have been "holy" or "holding." If the gecko was hiding that seems a reasonable thing for a gecko to do. Maybe it was indeed holy although I wouldn't associated geckos with spiritual power or greatness. The holding is more sinister - could our mantric gecko have been holding drugs? I don't know. I do know that it can be helpful to concentrate on a regular sound or to repeat a regular prayer. Sometimes The Serenity Prayer or a chant can force me to listen to the words or sounds and clear a channel choked with fear and self-seeking to my Higher Power. Nonetheless, I can still find my thoughts drifting off even while I'm listening to the sounds or even when I'm saying the words, for chrissake, and I can even think about something else when I'm reading something out loud. My capacity to indulge my wandering mind is limitless.
Nam Myoho Renge Kyo is what the woman was actually chanting. First of all, I couldn't remember those sounds if I had as many lifetimes as there are stars in the sky. Secondly, I can't remember what my second point is. I will, God bless Google, reveal that this phrase can be translated as "Devotion to the Mystic Law of the Lotus Sutra." Whew.
More from Google: "The unique teaching of the Lotus Sutra and its ultimate goal - indeed of Buddhism as a whole - it to enlighten all people; to relieve them of their suffering and enable them to experience genuine happiness, thereby establishing a society that values peace and the dignity of life."
Whew, again.
No comments:
Post a Comment