my monkey mind

I’ve always been fast, I enjoy being fast, but certainly have always (and continue to be) too fast for my immediate family, from whom I continually hear, “Slow down, I don’t understand what you are saying… can you just be patient Margaret… and please just let me do it, you don’t have to do everything.” Fast is getting work done twice as quickly as others, which means more time for me. It means Manhattan is energizing and not draining; it means there is so much more life to fit into my day.

The downside of fast is that a mind moving quickly—a super effective tool when working, reasoning problems out, exchanging witty flirty banter with cute urban men, is a ridiculously ineffectual quality when trying to find a way to harness the mind, relax, meditate. Not to say that one cannot be meditative while being fast—in fact it’s very easy to do so. Athletes, stock brokers, any high powered executive or even artist, chef, what have you, that flow, that go-to state they go to, that “zone” IS a meditative place. Someone may not call it that, but any place where everything else falls away is the sweet spot, whether you dub it pure intention, connection to source, human ambition, or the zone, it is, for all intents and purposes, whether fast or slow, a higher state of consciousness. We’ve all been there. But what I’m talking about is the calm after that. How does a person obtain the mental equivalent of jumping out of a car going 100 miles an hour and onto a beach chair, without the use of a six pack of sandy coronas to get there?

Whether we recognize it or not, all of our minds run first thing in the morning. Well, maybe some jog. Some are even slower; their minds are as an awakening dazed puppy, who looks around the room sleepily and blinkingly adjusting to his surroundings as if needing a few minutes to remember where he was last dropped.

If times are busy, eyes open, body starts to find its wakefulness and it’s: “what time do I need to leave to get to that meeting, I think I’ll wear that red blouse today, should I go to yoga or spinning, I’m seeing so and so at 6:30, so I’ll eat after, ooooh, maybe so and so will be there.” If depressed it could go something like: “oh m’fer another g’d*** day, ugh, I’m out of coffee, of f’ing course, how am I going to get out of this bed. Just get out of this bed. I’m so tired.” And if we’re happy and blissed out, let’s say newly in love, the thoughts might be positive, but they still come: “oh, look at so and so lying next to me in bed, look at him snoring, he’s so cute, I love that he snores just a little and not a lot, because it’s just enough to be cute but not enough that it’s a problem, oh, I’m going to kiss his ear he’s so cute… ohh, I’m going to wake him up he’s SO cute…” and so on.

To wake up, and think, “I am in my body. Let me scan through and see how my organs are feeling. Let me connect to gratitude and be thankful for all the blessings in my life before moving a muscle. Love you mom. Thank you apartment for providing me with warmth and shelter. What up, spleen?, I don’t really actually have any idea what function you have in my body, but you’re awesome, thank you for rocking it out each and every day so that I can remain breathing and your spleen function-y things keep happening.”… Well, let’s just say that doesn’t happen naturally. We can get there, but that is not, as human beings, innately our go-to place.

You can say all you like about slim thighs and a solid headstand , but Masters claim yoga’s main objective is “chitta vritti nirodha.” Being Sanskrit, one could probably google infinite nuances of translations, but I was first taught this is ‘ceasing the fluctuations of the mind.’ Or calming the monkey mind is another way of putting it. Meditation does the same thing. Presumably yoga makes the objective more challenging when said spleen is trying to hug the outside of your right knee and your head is gazing back in a 180 degree direction the other way. To calm the chitta vrittis that are screaming “oh my god, I want to throw up, die, this hurts, why the hell am I doing this, this just can’t be/right/natural, I’m not capable of this,” to calm those and go past them, to allow them to cease, to get into the “zone,” that’s nirodha.

My spectacular friend Erika Shannon teaches a class called Intensati (the love child of fierce, gorgeous Patricia Moreno) that wields the boons of intentions and affirmations. What they essentially do is leap over the chitta vritti to tap you into that zone space, and you unknowingly are able to push yourself much harder than you thought possible. (It’s the main tenet of Dr. David Hawkins work in the highly lauded “Power vs. Force.”) I would like to think I am in terrific physical condition. Or rather, last week, I would have liked to think that I was maybe not an Olympic athlete, but at least looked and felt damn good for my age. Needless to say, I took Erika’s class three days ago for the first time in a couple of years, and my sweet ass still hurts. I, and 79 other sweaty downtown New Yorkers, were guided and inspired to operate at our highest potential, and that took rising above our minds.

One of the most revelatory moments while living in India came a few months into my impromptu residency there, with a few more months stretched out in front of me. In India, I learned to relax. I learned the magic of doing nothing. I lay in bed for hours and hours and hours at a time reading and it was the first time in my life I had done that. I’d always been a voracious reader, but as a little girl would walk reading books on the way to Catholic school, or stay up all night at 8 years old to zoom through the latest Nancy Drew, frantically fighting the clock of dawn. In India, I read and did nothing else. I learned the art of taking my time.

So, one morning, I awoke and my mind was running. I had no job, no pressing deadlines, no romances to speak of, no one to answer to, no worries or responsibilities whatsoever, and it was still running. Running with: “hm, I wonder where we’re going to eat lunch today, maybe I should organize something at so and so’s house, is it hot outside?, maybe I’ll go to the pool, should I get highlights? So and so and so and so are so cute. I love them. Maybe I’ll write them a card today.” And I woke up. I realized that I had absolutely nothing to do, had been in India for months, but my mind had not stopped fluctuating. Chaos in my life had nothing to do with men, New York, my family, my job, the size of my ass, the pimple on my nose, it had everything to do with the structure of my mind.

I would like to say that I then and there levitated into an unspeakable level of ecstasy and grace, floating into a four hour reverie of my own oneness with the universe, like a cosmic eagle, taking off into flight of a new consciousness with gorgeously birthed wings. But I didn’t. Instead I thought “huh, how about that.” Then I went to go get an omelet.

Meditation is a tough sell because it’s not a one for one exchange. It’s not, “here’s $40, I’ll have the green sweatshirt,” “Oh my gosh this chocolate cupcake is divine,” “Oooh, that feels good, just like that, baby.” Although you can and most likely do feel better immediately after meditating, it is the cumulative effects of an ongoing practice that really significantly (and for once I’m not being dramatic or hyperbolic here) can alter the course of one’s life.

And what sucks is that meditating is hard. I mean, it’s not all floaty wonderland chocolate rivers of happiness and loveliness. It can get there, for sure. You can have moments, even weeks of that Na’vi deliciousness, and it’s awesome when that happens, but that’s not really the point either. The point is to be where you are and be cool with that. When a relationship unexpectedly halts, that ‘sure thing’ deal that was going to pay for your summer share falls through, when the stretchiness in your expensive pair of jeans is not quite stretchy enough for your Saturday night and you have to be at a bar on the LES half an hour ago, to have the chitta vritti going bonkers and be able to think, “You know what? That’s cool. I’m cool…” that’s the sweet stuff that meditation can bring.

Sitting still was not in my vocabulary. The only way it ever even factors into my life is the time that I take every morning to sit still. Sometimes I force it, sometimes it’s a welcome grace, but I’ve gotten to the point where I always do it. This isn’t any sort of great accomplishment as much as it’s become a practice that is a necessity. Whether for five minutes or 20. And if I don’t do it, I feel a difference. I am not as well focused in the rest of my day. It’s really as simple as that.

Of course there are a zillion other advantages of meditating and getting into that zone, and I feel them and could dissect and philosophize about them all, but for today, if it’s just increased efficiency and a little less chitta vritti all around? I’ll take that.