#4 Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert 2006

This blog is going to be slightly different than usual. The Indian portion of Eat, Pray, Love inspired me to do my own meditation. I was reading before school one morning and read about Vipassana, a form of meditation in which you do nothing. You sit. End of story. You are not allowed to move once you have positioned yourself, not even to scratch. I thought to myself, There is no way I could do that for even ten minutes. And a deeper part of me replied, You will never know if you don't try. It is only for ten minutes. On your mark, get set, GO! No sooner than I thought it my leg began to itch. Ignoring it didn't help. If anything, it made it worse. So instead I focused on it. I discovered that it wasn't that bad. My leg wasn't burning, it had an itch; an insignificant itch. With that I was able to move on. 

After I had my epiphany (It was only an itch! Who knew?) I was able to meditate on the sunlight. I know that sounds a little corny but it was the only thing I could meditate on besides the wall. I found the spots where it pulsed and waited in anticipation for shadows to move and reveal the light behind. That sunlight reminded me of contentment and happiness. It could be disfigured and hidden but it was always there. You can never quite get rid of it.

After my sunlight analogy, I closed my eyes and breathed. In, and then out. While I inhaled I made certain that the air went all the way down to my toes and when I exhaled I reeled the air back up to my head as if it was on a fishing line. I would like to say that I experienced some form of enlightenment but I would be lying. However, it did make me feel peaceful and happy.

When one of my friends finally showed up at school and broke my trance I found to my delight that I had done it! Ten minutes had already gone by. That deep part of my mind said, Good. Now you can try it for three hours. Thankfully, my more conscious mind had the sense to reply, That is so not happening.