Easter Meditation

April 12, 2009

Tonight, I go to the meditation class that meets weekly at my church. It is Easter evening. The room is crowded-almost every chair and floor space has a person in it. The teacher has us sit still and listen to our breath, paying attention to sensory stimuli and to any thoughts or feelings that arise within us.

We do this for 45 minutes. Then, he talks to us about living and dying. He tells us there is a cycle going on for all of us from one moment to the next where we make up who we are and make up each other as well. He says there is no such thing as the self.

He then tells us that every feeling and thought we experience comes from something we’ve experienced in the past. One woman asks how we could have a memory of things before if we don't exist. Our teacher tells us that Buddha would say we both exist and do not exist. What does this mean? I don’t get it.

Later that night, I go home and go to sleep. Like many other nights lately, I wake up in the wee hours after having dreamed of my ex-boyfriend. In tonight's dream, he tells me he loves me, and I wake up in a panic because I know this is no longer true. I start to understand what the teacher means when he says the only thing we can count on is change.

Looking at my ex, I start to see how he-and me, and everyone else I know-could be said to not really exist because we are constantly changing-we are one thing and then totally something else from one moment to the next. I wonder if we have to be senseless strings of divergent moments or if by our choices we could make ourselves into something more solid. Do we have the power, if we make aware choices from one moment to the next, to create consistency in our lives?

I think it isn’t easy, but it isn’t impossible. I decide to start making better choices and becoming more aware of what goes on-both inside and around me.