The Monastery

Chapter 26: Meditation

Later that day, Susant returned to the main temple. He was secretly hoping that Tenzin, the Chanting Master, might be reciting another one of his visual stories. However, when he got there, all he found were a few monks sitting on their red cushions, their hands held in their laps, with their eyes closed.

              He decided to wait and see if Tenzin would arrive, but to no avail. After an hour of waiting and pondering over the story he had experienced earlier that day, Susant finally succumbed to the curiosity of what it was that the monks were doing. None of them had moved. At all.

              He stood up to leave when he watched a girl his age walk in through the main door. He sat back down immediately, watching her from a distance. He had seen her before, though only a couple times. She had long black hair, wavy as it fell down her back. Her movements were subtle and unexaggerated, as if she only moved just enough to do what was needed.

              Susant felt a flutter in his heart as he watched her. For some reason, he wanted nothing more than to sit down next to her, to look at her and to smile. She sat near the back, off to the side and out of the way of anyone that might be entering or leaving. Her face was kind, and once she sat down, he could see a faint smile curl her lips.

              By the gods, I have never seen such a beautiful girl in all my life, thought Susant.

***

              Susant was sitting on the steps outside the main temple when Jampa walked over, eating an apple. He caught the eye of his friend, then scooted over on the steps so he could sit down.

              "Why are the monks just sitting in there doing nothing?"

              "They aren't doing nothing," answered Jampa, plainly enough.

              "Well then, what are they doing?"

              "They are meditating."

              "And what is that exactly?"

              "Couldn't really tell you," said Jampa. "I barely know how to do it myself."

              "You can't tell me anything?" Susant asked, feeling a bit let down.

              Jampa took a few bites of his apple. "Probably better to ask Kamala over myself, but I'll tell you what I know, and then we'll go from there. She was one of the nuns with us at the water offerings."

              Susant nodded, eager to learn. 

              "Let's start with the Buddha. He is the one that is first believed to have found enlightenment, as I'm sure you've heard. Some believe there are many paths to that place, and others believe there are very few."

              "I haven't heard," said Susant. "What's enlightenment?"

              Jampa scratched his head. "It's really hard to explain. But, from what I understand, enlightenment is a complete emptiness that you find within yourself. The monks believe that we are all trapped in something called samsara, the eternal realm of suffering."

              "That seems a bit harsh," said Susant.

              Jampa shrugged. "Is it? Throughout your life, have you not had moments that felt empty in one way or another? We all have temporary happiness, but has it ever lasted forever? All of us will one day grow old. We will fade from this world. Our loved ones die of sickness or from the violence of others. There is no content in this place, only temporary pleasures."

              "I guess you could see it like that, but . . ."

              Jampa looked into the sky. "People are but dancing puppets, driven by desire and fantasy."

              "So . . . this enlightenment is supposed to free you from samsara, which is suffering?"

              "Eternal suffering. Even after you die and are reborn, you will still be trapped in samsara. But there is a way out, and that is what I think most people here are aiming to achieve. Enlightenment."

              "So, what does sitting still and doing nothing have to do with that?" 

              Jampa laughed. "Meditation is a gateway in learning to first control the mind, then use it less and less over time. To help us distance ourselves from the desires of the body. We sit in silence, contemplating, searching for emptiness. In this state, you discover yourself; your weaknesses, your strengths, and eventually, they believe that you can completely sever the connection to your ego. Only with the absolute abandoning of the ego, can enlightenment be found, or so they say."

              "I don't get it," said Susant. He paused, considering. "Wait, you said, they believe . . ." He looked at Jampa curiously, wondering if his friend actually believed the words coming out of his own mouth. 

              Jampa chuckled. "I told you, I wouldn't be that great at this." He looked back up at the sky. "I'm not sure what I believe. Whether enlightenment and being a Buddha are one in the same, I'm not sure. I do know that meditation has helped me to become a better human, and to be honest, I think a Buddha is really just someone who always sees the good in all things."

              "I think I like that more," said Susant, leaning back.

              Jampa looked over at his friend. "At the end of the day, I wasn't there when Buddha became Buddha, and I'm pretty sure that no one else here was either, so the answer seems pretty unknown across the board, wouldn't you say?"

              "I guess so," answered Susant. "But I still wonder how he became a Buddha . . ."

              "Or she became a Buddha," Jampa corrected. "I think in the end, it's probably something simple. To me, a Buddha has uncompromising compassion for all living things, like the man with the tigress. The Buddha does not have a self to preserve. It has no ego. It has only love in its eyes for what it sees."

              Susant sat for a few minutes in thought. So, the monks in the temple were meditating to free themselves of their egos, to destroy the desires of the body, so that they are no longer at the mercy of those desires? It was a lot to take in.

              "So, would that mean that the source of our suffering comes from the realization of an unfulfilled desire?" Susant asked, feeling the question take even himself back a bit.

              "I suppose so," said Jampa, taking a bite of his apple. "And I guess one might say that the source of all our conflict comes from trying to prove that one knowledge is true over another. That's why I take it all with a grain of salt. We're all just making observations here, aren't we?"

              "Never thought about it like that. But it seems like it takes a lot of patience to be able to sit and meditate, even though moving past our desires seems impossible to even think about."

              "It does, indeed," Jampa answered.

              "So maybe before we can have discipline over the body's desires, we must learn patience."

              Jampa smiled, then bit down on the core of his apple. He always finished the entire apple.

              "Congratulations, my friend," said Jampa, standing. "You've found a first step."

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