Pt 6 - The one where chocolate taught me a lesson

So, a highlight each day during the course was when movie time rolled around.

Yes, every day at 8pm we would gather in the hall, on our designated pillow, and get to watch an hour-ish of Goenka’s teachings.

(In case you forgot, Goenka is the human who restarted this whole Vipassana movement, he brought it to India and then eventually it spread to the West and is now practiced all over the world. When I say restarted, I mean, it’s obviously been around for a really long time since Buddha was the “inventor” of it (which is probably also inaccurate, I just can’t think of a better word).

Or let’s say Buddha (whose real name was Siddhartha Gautama btw, as Buddha is a title, not a name…I know, you learned something already, so cool, keep reading though) decided that this type of meditation technique was what’s needed for humanity to embark on its path towards enlightenment.)

I know you have no idea what the last part of this sentence means, and the funny (not actually) part is that whoever claims to know exactly what “the path to enlightenment” is or feels like is probably full of shit.

A fundamental part of lived spirituality (in my opinion) is to live with the awareness that we have absolutely no flipping clue about anything.

The only thing (and I mean THE ONLY THING) we have is our lived experience, and that is the evidence we can and should work with in our lives.  

And that experience, my friend, can lead to some evidence that can be quite, uhmm, what’s the word..mind-blowing!!!

Let me tell you, my mind was blown (or I suppose the spiritually more accepted term would be: expanded) in the days that followed the misery of day 5.

Quick memory refresh:

Remember how we were living under some rules during those days? The silence (well, the not lying) was only one of them, but then there was also no killing, no intoxicating substances, no sexual activities and no stealing.

And remember how I told you that I broke a couple of those?

And how you have been on the edge of your seat to find out which ones?

Well…  

I did kill a mosquito. Or 3.

When my sleep is threatened by a tiny flying insect that is also responsible for the most human deaths every year, this is where my mercy ends…I know, I know, I have so much more meditating to do.

That was one sila (ethical conduct) I broke and the other...ready?

Every day at lunch there was some form of dessert. Sometimes it was cake that seemed super healthy because it was made with sesame seeds as a replacement for flour or some form of sticky pudding that I chose not to engage with, but one day it was: chocolate.

Very dark healthy chocolate but still, chocolate. Cut in very neat little cubes that were just so easy to wrap in a napkin and accidentally slip into the pouch of my hoodie.

Which *gasp* I did do that day.

Why?

BECAUSE THERE WAS NO DINNER, OK?

Sorry, I didn’t mean to scream at you, but I must admit that the fear of being hungry before bed never quite left me.

Ironically, I didn’t even eat the piece of chocolate (or two, I totally took 2) that night. It served more as an insurance policy than anything else. Ya know, just in case…

I mean, isn’t that what our entire society is built on: “just in case??”

Focus, Mel - what did you do with the chocolate?

Right.

Well, it’s actually quite boring, I kept it wrapped in the napkin next to my bed until a couple of days later I ate it as an afternoon snack. And that was that.

End of story?

Nooooo….

Back to the movie time I started this whole post with (and then just trailed off like any good undiagnosed millennial ADHD brain would.)

One night Goenka explained in depth why it is so crucial to have these 5 silas we all (most of us) committed to at the very beginning of the course.

Turns out, he had a point, and I paid the price.

The reason is that a good life has to start with purity of mind. Every bad action can be traced back to a bad feeling, and every bad feeling can be traced back to a bad thought.

 (Read that again, it's important!)

Easy fix then: have no more bad thoughts and you will do no more bad deeds.

Done.

Suuure… I mean, yes, that is literally how it works (and it actually does), but it’s not so easy.

Our minds are assholes trying to trick us and take the path of least resistance, give us that instant gratification, which, sure, to be fair, is an evolutionary design to keep us alive, but that has been fucked up by capitalism because today we have Uber Eats and Tinder.

I digress.

There was a sign in the dining hall that said “do not take food out of the dining hall”. Which effectively meant that taking food out of the dining hall was doing something wrong…

But was it stealing?

I pondered over that for a while. But did it anyway.

It’s not like I was taking something from somebody?

It’s not like I caused anyone any harm by doing that?

It’s not like I wasn’t allowed to eat the chocolate?

The justification mill in my brain was on fire. On one of my walks that day, I noticed something: I did not really feel good in my body having those thoughts.

It went around and around…

Who are they to tell me that I am not allowed to do this?

But was it stealing?

I felt like I was doing something wrong in the moment.

I was nervous.

Afraid to be caught.

Making up excuses for what I could say if I did get caught.

The memory of what it felt like to have adrenaline shoot through my body as I was strategizing about the best timing of going to grab a napkin, on how to wrap the chocolate and leave the room, was haunting me.

Then the overthinking, did anyone see?

What were they thinking?

Are they judging me?

Would I judge them?

I felt heavy having these thoughts.

It was stressful.

And all THAT over a piece of chocolate????

It started to make sense that Goenka and this school of thought he taught say that there is, in fact, no difference between stealing, say, a car and, well, in my case, a piece of chocolate.

When I first heard that, I thought it was ridiculous. But his point was that it’s not about the thing that’s being stolen, it’s about the thoughts and the feelings that precede the action.

And it was true.

Without the thought about the possibility of breaking this rule in this way and without the feeling of fear of hunger, or the frustration about being told what to do, I would not have been tempted to do this.  

So I guess he has a point.

I kept analyzing and dissecting what had happened, how my experience actually matched his teaching, and then I saw this dead tree trunk. It was so rotten it almost fell apart all by itself.

Somehow I was fascinated by it, so I took a stick and started poking it and pulling chunks off it, staring at the wood fibers and bugs and inner life of it. I really got into it, and I would probably describe it as satisfying to be somewhat destroying the remains of what was once a tree.

And then, it hit me.

Wait a minute, what has just happened?  

I was replaying my experience in my head about how bad thoughts led to bad feelings, led to bad actions (aka me stealing chocolate), led to me recognizing this pattern and the feelings it left me with and then again, led to more destruction in the form of interfering with the natural decaying process of nature.

Ok, yes, of course..hold on, I do see how in the context of all the other massive crap that is happening in the world, stealing a piece of chocolate that I technically had the right to eat anyway and poking around in a dead tree trunk are not things that qualify me for jail time (ironically it felt like I was in jail already, so joke’s on me), but guess what, that didn’t really matter because it gave me this lesson.

This experience was proof that what this Burmese gentleman on the screen was saying from 8pm to roughly 9:20pm every day is actually true.

My destructive thoughts inside of me led to me actually destroying something outside of me.

And not to be dramatic, but that’s the reason we have wars.

(It’s not because so-and-so took so-and-so’s land).

So yes, it sucks for the tree trunk and all the bugs that had to go find a different home (I truly feel guilty for that now), but you know who suffered from the biggest destruction?

Me.

Maybe now you’re like, WTF, what do you mean, you started the whole thing, you did this to yourself!

Exactly.

I did this to myself.

I DID THIS TO MYSELF.

I am pretty sure nobody cared one bit about me “stealing” chocolate. But who was the one overthinking, overanalyzing, feeling heavy, guilty, mad and doubtful?

Me.

Who was the one spending a whole afternoon walking around in that forest with a raised heart rate and destroying nature?

Me. 

Was that one little piece of chocolate worth all that?

Honestly, not really..

I guess it was worth the lesson because I don’t think I have it in me to steal a Lamborghini...

It may be a tough pill to swallow, but let me tell you that this is absolutely true:

As within, so without.

Inner destruction leads to outer destruction.

And you are the only one who can stop it.

So go on and take care of your thoughts.

Love,

Mel  💌

PS. All my newsletters are written by me, not AI (so please flag the typos).

😉

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