Maddie and I had no idea what to expect. Neither of us had ever attempted to meditate, but we were interested and excited to try. The plan was to write this as piece where we walked in skeptical, and walked out transformed by the power of meditation. That’s not quite what happened…
Kosala Buddhist Center is tucked in the attic above Carrburritos, which straddles the Chapel Hill/Carrboro line. We arrived right at 7 p.m. and were quickly ushered upstairs to Kosala. As we entered a dimly lit room, the entire class of about 15 looked up surprised from their pillows. It seemed that people usually arrive early to these classes. Right after we awkwardly slipped off our shoes and paid the $3 donation, we were ready to begin.
The class attendees were passing around a tea kettle as they stretched in preparation for the hour ahead. The room was oriented around a large Buddha statue and other South Asian art lit up by lamps and candles. At 7:05, one of the center employees got up from her pillow to fetch the teacher, Jack.
As he entered the room, all of the hushed whisperings ceased. Jack looked exactly as you would expect a meditation teacher from Carrboro to look: a tall, older man with a short ponytail wearing loose-fitting clothes, carrying a book on meditation. Jack prefaced the class by asking for a show of hands who was new to meditation, and Maddie and I were relieved to see that we were not the only ones with our hands up.
We began with a simple meditation: focusing on our breath and nothing else. For 25 minutes. The time passed excruciatingly slowly as I struggled to keep my mind on my breath, and not on the sounds of the restaurant below, cars in the street or the impending deadline for this very article. Yet somehow I was shocked when Jack instructed us to “return to the present,” and I realized I had barely meditated at all.
As I returned to the present, I glanced over at Maddie, who had a sense of calm about her. I didn’t feel so zen. In between the first meditation and the next, Jack explained how difficult that meditation could be for some, and that to even keep attention on your breath for 30 seconds was an accomplishment, let alone 25 minutes. I felt a little better about myself as we transitioned into the second, and final, meditation.
This one was a little bit more up my alley, as its goal was to meditate on the sounds we heard around us, such as the cars in the street or voices from Carrburritos below. I found it peaceful, in a way, to zone out and tune in to the world around me. Maddie felt differently, as she later told me she fell asleep during the second meditation.
Jack rounded off the class with a pair discussion, encouraging us to talk to the person in the room we knew the least. Besides Maddie, for me that was the entire class. I chatted with a man named Farhad, who had been coming to the class for a while. He related to me about how mediation was also challenging for him at first, but proved rewarding in time. He encouraged me to keep coming back, and to bring that “nice-seeming girl” too.
