A Moment of Zen

One of my favorite experiences this month was zen meditation with the Muramatsu RC. I've practiced a variety of meditation in the past decade, but this one really brought me closer to enlightenment... I actually transcended to the heavens for a moment. Let me explain: after 15 minutes into the experience I was just beginning to forget about the pain in my legs from trying to maintain a half-lotus position where my knees keep wanting to bounce back up to the ceiling. Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale... like they taught me in Thailand, and let everything else float down stream. Yes, I was getting to that moment of focus and relaxation when **SMACK**. To the left of me, Claudia has just been "awakened" by the monk. You see, in zen, they do this thing where they hit you hard on the right shoulder to make your brain happy and alert so you can meditate better. I knew that, but still I thought, oh, no... he's coming for me next, maybe if I pretend to be deep in meditation he'll move on. Well, it can't be as bad as it sounds, I thought. But it was. Jupiter's moons, the Big Dipper, Orion's Belt, the Big Bang... I saw it all in that moment of illumination and then for the next moment I went blank. But I guess I learned the lesson. It was ZEN. Or, as Dave and Mike like to say when something in Japan baffles us, "its all about emptiness."







As you can see in this photo, the monk is very carefully plotting his sneak attack on Claudia's right shoulder. And you thought they were all innocent peacemakers, didn't you?