Photo courtesy of staysanenow.com
My leg was falling asleep.
I was sitting on floor cushions at the St. Louis Wellness Center in Webster Groves where Shambhala-St. Louis was hosting a 90-minute meditation session. Our instructor told us to get comfortable and I thought I was in a fairly good position with my legs gently crossed, but the tingling in my right foot heading up my calf told me otherwise.
I had never meditated before. In fact, I wasn’t sure that I could meditate. The thought of sitting in a darkened room listening to pan flute music while the clock slowly ticked away did not appeal to me. I could see myself getting more and more anxious as I thought about all the time I was wasting when there were things to get done.
When I walked into the meditation center and saw the obligatory pictures of Buddha, and photos of some Tibetan guys hanging above a small credenza with 7 glasses of water on it and ashes from spent incense, I was skeptical. At least there was no pan flute music.
The other participants, there were seven of us, gathered in the waiting area of the Wellness Center (which also offers couples counseling, psychotherapy, and far-infrared sauna treatments). We all introduced ourselves. Then we lined up in the hallway and our instructor, Gwen, rang a gong to indicate we should come in.
As each person processed in, they bowed to the altar (the credenza with the water on it), and then we settled down on our pre-selected cushions.
Still no pan flute music. In fact the room was virtually noiseless. I immediately began thinking about how cold I was, but Shambhala meditation is done with open eyes, so I knew that if I leaned over and grabbed my jacket, everyone would see me. So I took a deep breath and tried to focus on my breathing.
It was actually working, the tension I had been carrying around all weekend, worrying about everything I had to do, seemed to recede. Then I noticed its recession and the disappearing knot in my stomach and the smoke wafting toward me from the incense.
“When you lose focus, just gently correct yourself,” Gwen reminded us as she went around the room helping us correct our posture.
Then my leg started to fall asleep. I was debating what to do when Gwen rang a Tibetan bell and told us we’d try walking meditation.
While it was hard to focus during seated meditation, walking was a different, and better story. We went in a single file circle around the room in utter silence. With every step, I repeated a mantra in my head (“wolf uterica Barbara” is my best phonetic transcription), which helped me keep my mind clear.
I won’t say that I had a breakthrough, but I also wasn’t agonizing over the time I was spending pacing in a slow circle.
After about 20 minutes of walking meditation, we returned to our floor cushions to discuss what we’d just experienced. Gwen explained that Shambhala is a religion based in Buddhism. It’s based in meditation and through that, students learn the teachings of the founder of Shamhala Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and his son Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche (the two Tibetan guys whose photos were above the altar). Meditation, in combination with Shambhala teachings, brings out our fundamental nature of goodness, warmth, and intelligence.
We ended the session with some chanting and then bowed to one another.
I emerged feeling surprisingly relaxed and when I hopped in my car to drive home, I didn’t even check the time.
