Light

It was during the meditation session with the shy, or not so shy, abbot, that I experienced something unusual. As I proceeded through the usual stages of my mind wandering, my breathing slowing, and the images flashing through my mind without control, I noticed the frequency of my distractions slowing. My body seemed swollen or fuzzy, at times I felt like I was falling, almost about to fall asleep. Then I had a sensation of warmth, and a vision of a landscape with extremely, almost painfully, bright light. But then a sensation of extreme happiness, perhaps joy, came over me. Before I knew it, it was gone, as if someone had removed the spot light that was temporarily focused on me. A chill came over my body, "what was that"? I could not return to my meditative state. I was too focused on what had just happened. This was definitely strange. Something karmic? Otherworldly? No, but it was a sign to me that I had made some kind of transition in my mind, at least temporarily. My next thought was could I do it again?

Go Deeper

As the Abbot continued talking his intensity increased. He urged us to go beyond relaxation, to explore the deeper aspects of meditation. Pratice, practice, practice. As he continued building on all the components of meditation we were struck by the transformation from shy Abbot shuffling down the room, to the person urging us to "go beyond". Finally he stopped, looked around sheepishly and apologized for going over the allotted time. Not without another discussion on merit. Here we go again.

The shy abbot

     There seems to be some nervous tension in the room. The leader draws out some more discussion while glancing around nervously and commenting that the abbot is expected any minute now. Finally he shuffles in slowly, moves to the stage up front and quietly sits in the half lotus position. Apparently this is his last week at this site, and he usually does not perform guided meditation. Was he nervous, or was it my imagination? He walked us through the paces of guided and then silent meditation and then it was question and answer time again. "Why do you meditate?", he asked. Was this a rhetorical question, or was he looking for an answer? I now knew even if he was expecting an answer, it wasn't going to be me. He continued on, and I was glad I had kept quiet. This time, it was less questions and more teaching. He seemed to be ramping up. This shy abbot had a lot on his mind he wanted to share.

Fourth Group

I'm finding myself in an interesting predicament. I'm late for class. So many conflicting thoughts on this topic. Rushing to meditate, is that inherently wrong? Should I calmly walk to class and disturb everyone with my entrance, or hurry, out of breath and enter in a non-meditative state? I decide to rush, maybe I'll hit the tail end of stretching. As I enter I see we have finished stretching and I scan the crowd looking for a seat. Hmmm, there is one up front. Oh well.
      AS I sit down, we are talking about one thousand one hundred and twenty seven monks who are travelling through Thailand as part of the healing process from the tsunami. I hear them referred to as the eleven-twentyseven, and my mind flashes back to a tv show called the 44 hundred. I am broken from my reverie by someone asking if there is significance to the number of monks. "No", says the leader. "I don't think so". So we wait on the abbot to begin the guided meditation....

Meditative Engineer...Oxymoron?

Eventually I came back to the title of "Meditative Engineer...Oxymoron?" Testing the idea that engineers, the more applied straight laced version of physicists, chemists and the like, would be open minded enough to try meditation. Forget the mystical astral projection component, could we still our brains long enough to give meditation a try, and what would be the result. Thus, the experiment began.

Blog research

As I was doing my blogging research and trying to come up with a name and format, I worked on merging engineering with meditation. I came up with a page and a half of puns, word mash-ups and technico-metaphysical words. "An engineer's guide to meditation" (boring) "Meditation: An engineer's lab experiment" (geeky, boring and too long) "The meditation Project" (yawn overused) Mantra Engineer (better, but what is the blog about) and of course a few portmanteu words; Mengineer, Engitation, Meditationeer and others. My favorite, was unfortunately taken by a blogger with the title The Engineering Chick and was called "Finding your Ohm, meditation for engineers".

The decision to blog

As I realized I was in this for the long haul, and wanted to chart my progress (or lack of it) I thought this might make a great first attempt at a blog. I had been wanting to start a blog, but couldn't find anything I was passionate about to write daily or even weekly, until now! Of course I ran through the usual questions, "Is anyone else doing this? What would be a good name? How do you build a blog? What sites are best? What does it cost?" There were lots of great sites to help me understand the different platforms. Lots of recommendations about blogging, "keep it short and sweet", "keep the name descriptive", "link to other sites", "blog frequently". I also enjoyed researching other meditation blogs. More on that next post.

Daily Practice

By this point I was trying to practice at home. The only time that worked was early in the morning before the kids got up for school. It was only 10 minutes, but it was quiet and I was motivated to make the time work. The problem, as I found out, was that I could not obtain the same lightness at the end of meditation that I felt when in the group. It wasn't just a matter of meditation time. On some Saturdays I meditated for almost an hour. It was better than the 10 minute stints, but still not as good as group meditation. I was frustrated as to what I was missing, but thankful that I still had good group experiences.

youtube venerable

After the discussion about merit, the leader connected her laptop to a large flat screen tv and proceeded to a youtube site for a presentation by an orange robed venerable. As he came into view, speaking with a slightly british accent, I pondered the irony of the youtube venerable. Somehow presenting the wisdom of the ages through the internet didn't seem quite right, but it was an interesting approach.
    After the class I again chatted with the newbie I saw at the beginning of class. "What did you think?", I asked. She responded that she enjoyed it and would probably be back. A voice behind me said "I think Karl will be back again as well". He was right. Like last time, the bounce in my step, the lightness of my being, it was present again. Still leaving happier than when I started.