If you know me then you know that one of my biggest problems is to stick with things. I get easily exicted over just about anything, am fully determined to "this time really do it", and after a while all my good intentions drift away into oblivion. How long this process takes is depening on the activity, and can range from a few hours, to a few days to a few years even, and everything inbetween. When I think back on my life I cannot really think of anything that has permanently stuck with me and my lifestyle. So I used to play pro volleyball. I used to play guitar. I used to play bass. I used to be Catholic. I used to study biology. I used to be in a band. I used to be outdoorsy. I dunno. You get the picture, I assume?

In all these things (with the exception of my indoctrinated early religion) I had aspirations to become a "pro", to "make it", to "make people think of my name when they hear about the Nobel Prize". I was all into it to the point of annoying my fellows around me, until my interest suddenly faded and eventually vanished.

Yesterday was meditation class at the temple again. In the morning I was still excited about it, looking forward to all the new things I would learn, and all the relaxation and elation I would experience again. Then I went to work. And an avalanche of chores crushed down on me and chained me to my desk for a good amount of overtime. By the time I could leave, I would have probably been a bit too late to the meditation class, and there are few things I hate more than being late for anything. Plus, you know... it costs money anyways, and it is too cold to travel through the entire city right now, and by the time I will be out and on my way home it will be even colder, not to mention how late it will be when I'll be home, and I have to get up early in the morning...

Fascinating. Fascinating how easily I fall back into these patterns of abandoning things I enjoy for shady reasons - and fascinating that I am actually catching myself doing it.

So I turned off all these tiny voices with their dubious reasonings, and went out into the cold, heading for the temple afterall. There were more people than last time, but one of the more experienced students and the teacher recognized me right away and welcomed me warmly. That fact alone lifted my spirits. During instruction I had a hard time focusing. I could not dissipate myself into the breathing exercise the way I could last time, and I did not understand much of what I was being told. There was a myriad of new things, alien things - did you know that Buddhists pray?

Well, I did not, and I was very bewildered by that yellow paper with the prayer text on it on the seats and tables - it reminded me muchly of going to church, with their prayer books and brochures distributed on all benches. I read the prayer for myself, and I understood nothing of it. I was very confused, but then Gen Demo looked into the group and asked if anybody here had a problem with prayer.

It was a very quiet group, and I am not one to draw all attention on me by being the only one to speak out either, but my crooked smirk must have been obvious enough, for Gen Demo smiled at me and asked me to explain. So I did. She listened and gave me a friendly nod, then gave a very sense-making explanation of Buddhist prayer - and said that a lot of people that come from a Catholic/Christian background do not understand the concept of it, and therefore have a hard time accepting it for what it is, and will show a lot of natural resistance. Again I felt like she was talking to me directly, because the word "prayer" alone is enough to make my skin crawl and my body cringe, and everything inside me squirm and resist. To me, without wanting to offend any of my Christian friends, there are few things more pointless and stupid than prayers in the traditional sense. I could never fathom the idea of such a huge and omnipotent being that the Christian god is supposed to be to listen to whatever I would have to say, much less grant me any wishes just because I ask. The simple fact of the world being the fucked up place that it is grants my assumptions some heavy leverage. Hey... I am sure a lot of good folk ask their god daily for world peace - sure, he totally listens and totally does what you ask him for... uh-huh. Just like the little kid with the ant farm would care about the fate of the individual.

Okay... I didn't explain it in so many words, but Gen Demo seemed to understand exactly what I was trying to say. She gave me an explanation of the Buddhist prayer that - once I will have really understood its implications and will have gotten used to the thought of a "prayer" not being an imagined conversation and plea to an imagined higher being - I think I can live with, and maybe even use myself. Basically, if I understood it right, a prayer is a chant meant to allow a passage of blessings and inspirations to enter you, an accumulation of positive energy, in other words. Prayer is used to prepare for meditation, and after meditation to dedicate your efforts and experiences to the enlightened beings. No Gods, no pleas, but a simple drawing of positive energy from your surroudings, an opening of energy channels.

Gen Demo then said to just sit and listen, let feelings happen even if we do not understand. Then she began to sing the prayer, and I listened, and I imagined, and it really was beautiful. Peaceful. Positive. During the following mediation I really held on to the wish of wanting to learn, and the positive feeling that came with it. As she said... it will be really hard to keep on coming back, if we do not really manifest that wish within us through meditation.

Afterwards her student asked me if it was hard for me to come back today. I was startled. How did she know that I had doubts? How did she know that I am a quitter? She just smiled and said that everything takes consequence to achieve something, and not to be discouraged, if this time I didn't feel the same as I did last time. Everything takes patience, she said, and patience is what I have to learn.

It just seems to me that these people know everything that's torturing my mind. Not because they can read it, but because they understand that everybody goes through similar things, even if we do not talk about them much. It makes me feel secure with my insecurities, and like I have a place where having insecurities is okay, because we all have them, and it is our common goal to leave them behind and move on to something better, a clear spirit and mind that is not weighed down by negativity. Nobody judges, we just focus on the good things. This concept draws me to them, and will make me go back next week for sure.

I shared my way home with a lady I met there, who happened to live just down a block from where I live. I almost laughed out loud with the irony of it all, when she said to me that she is a psychotherapist. So here I am in my current and desperate state of mind, deciding between spirituality and psychotherapy, eventually go with spirituality, and through it I meet a psychotherapist who tells me that she works a lot with depression...