To fathom the seriousness of the practice is no easy task. I thought I was serious enough until I was taken to task, to real work. Now, that I see the veil I was under, I find it no surprise that people do not realize the 'seriousness' until they are near death, or withhold some similar strong experience to realize what vaccums we live in. Most people go well past the stage where they can really invest years of hard, focused work on cultivating the insight and faculties required for meditation, without realizing the 'seriousness'.
For one, I know now, meditation (vipassana) is no laid-back, relaxing activity-- I was under that delusion for so long! Like any real job in this world, it requires a through grinding in concepts and correct exercising of technique, just that at times it is much much more difficult because the emotions you might be facing may be as strong as tides in the ocean and at the same time seem intangible. They are Not intangible, just seem to be so, no thought is without significance, and lack of mindfulness and there you go, down in the pits of multiplying sankharas for hours and days on end.
It has been almost a year that I have given up dinner, most days I have gone without food after noon. Lost considerable weight on the boobs and buttocks apart from being weak and thin, frail. This invited a lot of comments from friends and well-wishers. Apparently, even I felt I didnt know my facts so well ... but not for a moment did I doubt about my following the eight precepts. As I lost strength, I knew how strongly physical reality grasped me. What I believed differed from what I 'felt', I noticed how proud I was of my body and how strong the attachment. Taking care of body is one thing, being attached to the point of being deluded is another. Unruly attachment leads to unruly passion, to conducts that risks your happiness, to realise this--one needs to probe these first hand feelings, not indulge one's beliefs that change every now and then. First hand experience surface from such incidents as being hungry and not eating because u have determined t see you reactions, suspending what u 'think' and looking at how you react to physical fabrications first hand, it is only this first-hand experience that gives an opportunity to Work. That is why reading this will not help unless you also practice meditation, it has to come to individual experience, not mental 'belief'.
It is true that the past months I have been taking one early-evening meal, and have regained some of the strength, but I know I have also failed in more ways than one. It wasnt about giving up food, it was about will, releasing greed, releasing ties and compulsions. There were times when I would be busy in the morning ... and during the day, one particular day I came back home from another city and having walked miles was feeling weak and entirely hungry, I delayed taking food until next morning, cultivating even stronger will, stronger that the need for food. This determination has come to my rescue in times of tough decisions and during easy ones, I have been able to preserve discipline, not when it was easy to slip but also in times when it is difficult to slip. I noticed I tend to loose control when I thought Oh! I am in control let me take a bite....when I thought I wasnt giving in to greed I indulged in it!
It was during hostel days that I started thinking about giving up evening meals altogether. Dinners were the best deal of the day ... rich and nutritious. I remember coming back from jog one evening, Asha mam was taking attendance and some girls were sitting around her having dinner, their plates were full of goodies, finger chips, manchurian ... and I felt a strong moment of reflection thus "I have determined to not take dinner, it does not matter what is cooked, I will not react to the food or look at it". Without knowing I had sown a seed that will help my determination during this one year of giving up dinner. In fact, it didnt seem like 'giving up' at all, some time back (one year one month back, when I was still at PGW hostel, Delhi Univeristy) I was yet to discover the joy/pitti. This giving up was not giving up because it was colored by 'joy' rapture of meditation. Being prepared helps, one does not know what lays in the future, investing in mind is true preparation.
Having discovered this joy, away from material pleasure is a relief. I have discovered it only a bit, also now I know that joy that I now experience is also artificial, like cultivated just from will, it is not pure, but yet, I conceptualise the brahma-vihara. It is 'joy' and I notice it, it is as a factor of enlightement, and in no matter what small amount, I shall acknowledge its presence, I acknowledge the presence. Reading Thanissaro Bhikku's "Head and Heart Together" on accesstoinsight.org really helped understanding metta--ignorance sucks, one really needs guidance to come out of igorance. I discovered this site while working at Katha, a resource that gave me guidance and acted as a spiritual companion. I ultimately lost my job as editor at Katha as I used all the time to read the texts on this site. Didnt have a computer at my disposal and didnt have the discretion to buy it from a month's salary, the urgency to read was so great that I read it as soon as I laid my hands on the computer right from the first days at work, work suffered. I was thirsty, Ganges was flowing ...
One strong moment can lead to 10,000 others. Learning itself becomes a swarming tide that engulfs all the broken temporary shackles where the mind is caged. It seems like destruction has met us, that one has to start all over, that giving up a dinner, a job, a passion is unwise for something as abstract as a 'notion of discipline' in med., greed makes us overlook basic precepts, sometimes fear threatens and we give in!
I know I thought I was correct even as I broke some of these rules, cultivating so much harm that it is beyond imagination to fathom the cost I had to bear. Someone not into the practice may think of my opinion of this loss as fear, that I broke the precepts and the loss was as great as I make it out to be, may think I am scared or in misbelief.
However, I am lucky, I see the danger, I have seen the roots, and I have seen how carelessness establishes and feeds on us, destroying all the good we may have done. Usually there is a conviction at the back of the mind--that you are correct--this conviction has to go. *An unskillful mind cant be trusted! That's why complete surrender to the buddha, the dhamma, the sangha.
May I thrust myself with greater force in the practice, a force literally greater than the fear of death, death itself. May I emerge successful.
Replace this conviction with discrimination, replace it with detachment, equanimity, awareness-keep cultivating and practicing to make them stronger.
