By Gabrielle Jackson
7.01am: I’ve just done something terrible. I killed a spider. I
deliberately killed a spider. I didn’t take much pleasure in it, but that’s
hardly a defense, is it?
11.30am: This morning I sat for half an hour. My feet went numb and
my back ached. But the thing is, I could stand it. I did not move once. It was
amazing! I felt high. I mean, it really works. This is the breakthrough I’ve
been looking for! It can happen! It works!
It’s still a battle to control my thoughts and I had to have
a talk to myself about this diary. I spend a lot of time looking around and
thinking what I’ll say about it here. For instance, the lavender hospital
clothing they’ve got us in is compounded by the fact that everybody moves
around so slowly. We really do look like we’re in a psychiatric hospital,
especially at meal times. This thought makes me laugh.
It’s at meal times that I spend the most time thinking about
what I’ll write when I get back to my room. This is bad. I should be thinking
about what I’m eating and being mindful. I really am trying at that. Every day
I make sure I smell the frangipanis outside the dining hall. Today I smelt the
Singapore orchids as well (the frangipani smells better). I walk around the red
ant colony making absolutely sure not to stand on any. But I simply cannot walk
slowly. I’ve slowed down, compared to my normal pace, but the slowness kills
me. I can’t do it. I just can’t.
Meanwhile there is a fly in my room that has been here for
two days. My attitude towards it is not very zen. Today, when I was in the zone
during my meditation, a fly landed on me and I was able to let it go. I didn’t
move, I just let it crawl over me and then it flew away and didn’t come back.
But then as soon as I got back here and started stretching, my room fly is
doing its landing on me routine again and I am getting seriously worked up
about it. I just yelled at it to fuck off. This is not good. I clearly have a
lot of work left to do.
4.42pm: Well, I’ve had a breakthrough. My back doesn’t even
hurt so much anymore. My core stays strong even when I’m not thinking about it
and I don’t have to go and do loads of stretching to relieve it afterwards. My
legs still go numb and need a bit of massage before I can get up, but I can sit
still for half an hour without moving, even when a fly is crawling up my arm
and sweat is dripping down the small of my back. At the same time.
Speaking of flies, the fly in here is really asking for it.
Every time I enter the room it swarms around me like it’s happy to see me. I
have left the door open for it to leave. It refuses. Every time I try to chase
it out it hides from me until I close the door again. It’s driving me nuts.
So although I have broken through the pain barrier I have
not conquered the mind control game. Today I spent at least an hour writing (in
my mind) an episode of the sitcom Bindi and I are working on (kind of) while I
was supposed to be meditating. I was cracking myself up and had to use a fair
bit of mental energy not to laugh out loud. Then Cassi walked past, looking
like she was having a pretty tough time of it, and the hospital-issue white
baggy trousers she had on had a big brown stain on the bum. I couldn’t control
that laugh.
9.28pm: I take it all back. I have not broken through any
pain barrier. That last session was torture, and it didn’t even involve the
Dhamma talk.
I wish I hadn’t read Michael Phelps’s biography before
coming here. I keep setting myself challenges and saying, ‘Michael Phelps wouldn’t have
quit here’ or reciting to myself sayings that his coach says to him about
training, as if I’m actually going to try to swim in the Olympics. I just want
to sit still and not think. But Michael Phelps is at me, every time I want to
get up and say it’s too hard. I was in so much pain tonight that when I got up
the room was spinning. My head was so fuzzy that I couldn’t even see straight.
It was like I’d taken four Valium (I hadn’t. I seem to have lost them).
9.38pm: Great, there’s a cockroach in my bathroom. I hate my
bathroom. It stinks and every other night, it seems, when I get home from the
torture session and all I want to do is have a shower and go to bed, there’s
another nasty surprise waiting for me that I can’t kill. Maybe I was wrong on
the first day saying it would be easy to keep precept number one – not to kill
things. Why are there so many insects and spiders and cats screeching and dogs
howling and spiders and cockroaches in my bathroom! Argh! I’m only half way
through. Why am I here? Why am I doing this?
Today I noticed that ears get itchy a lot. It’s my most
itchy spot, other than my head, but that might have something to do with the
fact I haven’t washed my hair in over a week.
What happens the next day? Read Meditating with monks: day six here.
Have you read the first four days of the Meditating with monks diary? Read them here:
Have you read the first four days of the Meditating with monks diary? Read them here:
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