5. Death, Meditation & A Chance Encounter

Death is inevitable. You’ve heard that before. Many times. There is no way around death. It’s a fact of life. Yet we either ignore it hoping it will go away, or it scares the shit out of us if we think about it for too long. When we think about it and dwell on it we can experience fear. We envision ourselves dying or losing a loved one and feel a sense of hopelessness. These feelings and emotions are quite common.

But what if we could learn to accept the inevitable? What if we could learn to be OK with death? What would that feel like? What would it look like? How would that change things? We could study death and maybe even be prepared for our own eventual demise. Here is where I introduce you to meditation and my experience with it.

My first introduction to meditation came was when I was around twelve years old. My dad asked me to hop in the car. We picked up my grandmother and off we went to a Transcendental Meditation Center near Lawrence, MA. I wasn’t allowed inside the center so I sat in the car. Grandma and dad came out after about 45 minutes. Dad had just received his “mantra” and grandma had already gotten hers on a previous visit. This was the 1960’s and grandma was into chiropractic and vitamins – the new age stuff of that time period. The TM meditation practice consisted of getting up early every day and sitting in a chair, eyes closed, and repeating the mantra over and over. I guess the idea was to maybe step away from the busy-ness of your mind temporarily. The repetition of the secret words (father never told me his mantra) somehow occupied your mind and perhaps calmed things down. Maybe the effort put forth forced you to concentrate and then perhaps your ability to focus and concentrate got better. For many years my dad got up early, sat in the chair with his eyes closed, and silently repeated his secret mantra to himself.

My own experience with the practice came many years later. Sure, I had heard about it over the years when I crossed paths with Yoga in the late 1970’s, and where I was first introduced to the concept of rebirth, or reincarnation. It seemed comforting to me that the end-all that Catholicism preaches was not the only option or belief system out there. But it wouldn’t be until the year 2000 that I would delve deep into Yoga and meditation. Yoga, in essence, is meditation. It’s not really all the stretchy, Gumby poses that you are familiar with. In fact the definition of Yoga in the ancient texts clearly states that “Yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind” (Yoga Sutra 1.2). So most meditation techniques help you calm the fluctuations of your mind, and maybe at some point the fluctuations stop, and you experience true Yoga. Seemed like a plan. I started meditating using Sanskrit mantras and mala beads on a regular basis. Sitting with eyes closed and silently repeating the mantras. Over and over. As I got deeper and deeper into Yoga the meditation practice deepened. In 2009 after many preliminary practices and much dedication I was “initiated” into a “tradition” and given my own personal mantra, similar to TM but a lot less expensive. I was to practice this personal mantra diligently from now on. And I did. Soon, I would have a calm , clear and tranquil mind.

Within the next year I was given a second mantra (same tradition) and I practiced that as well. A little while later, at a weekend retreat with some of my fellow initiates, I was invited to receive the mother of all mantras (sorry, I can’t share it with you). It was serious business. I had to be qualified, which I was. Sworn to secrecy. I was. And dedicated. I was. I practiced the mantra faithfully for a long time. As an over-achiever I jumped into a turbocharged practice of the mantra, with my teacher’s blessing of course. I was to complete one million repetitions of the mantra over the course of a year. When I did the math it worked out to two thousand eight hundred repetitions every day for a year. One of the conditions for this practice, called a purashcharana, was no consumption of alcohol during the year of practice. I rose to that challenge as well. I had often thought about stopping drinking and this seemed like a good reason and time to do it. I was off.

During that year of practice my wife Laurie was diagnosed with cancer. I continued with the practice but was really shaken up by her cancer. I started to think about things like death more regularly. I started to think through what was really important in life and what was not. Laurie’s cancer was really a turning point for me from an existential perspective. Now, thinking about life and death can be unsettling. We talked about this earlier. I began to accept that death was an inevitable part of life and what we happen to be doing with our lives doesn’t change that inevitability. We all know how this life ends – death. But we do not study death. We do not investigate it. We do not research it. We may even try to ignore it by repeating Sanskrit mantras silently in our mind, hoping death might just go away, or that we may simply pass peacefully some night, not knowing death at all. After fifteen years of this type of meditation practice I felt like maybe, just maybe, I had cultivated a somewhat calm, clear and tranquil mind.

In 2018 I had a wonderful experience in Bangkok, Thailand, of all places. I had never been to Thailand before and did not know what to expect. The first thing I noticed after just spending three months in India, was that Bangkok was orderly and clean. I took in the relaxing vibe and exhaled into the experience. We had rented a condo with a pool and laundry and we settled in for three weeks to explore Bangkok for our first time. We did the usual tourist places. Riverboats, temples, ruins, restaurants, cafes, malls. It was one afternoon by the big river right downtown. We had just toured our way through Wat Arun, a pretty famous temple complex. I did notice on the way in seeing a sign on a red door that simply read “Meditation Center” written in English. On the way out of the temple complex we stopped and looked at the sign again. Laurie and I looked at each other. We approached the door to see if it was unlocked. It was. Hey, we’re meditators so why not stop into the meditation center and say hello? As we walked in an older monk dressed in bright orange robes made eye contact with us. He spoke no English but as we asked “meditation center?” he motioned us to his left. We continued on until we reached an area with a screened-in meditation room, a few koi ponds, and a bunch of domesticated birds. We asked if we could meditate and a few younger girls got us some cushions. We sat for 20 minutes. We got up to leave and were offered water. Then a man about my age appeared and introduced himself. He was the director of the meditation center.

The director’s name is Hartanto Gunawan. He is an Indonesian man living in Bangkok. He gave up a life as a successful businessman and became a Buddhist monk to make his mother happy. Once ordained he was sent to an island by the head monk where he was to stay for a few days to get acquainted with monk life, begging for food and meditating. The head monk spaced it and forgot all about Hartanto. Years later, I’m not kidding, the head monk realizes that he hasn’t seen Hartanto in a while. The staff reminded him that he’s on the island. Oh, shoot, go get him. Bring him back. Hartanto lived under a tarp, begged for food, and meditated daily for two years on that island. When he returned to the temple he had a plan. He offered free meditation advice at the temple to anyone who was interested. He set up a school to rescue young women from human trafficking where they could get training as nurses. His plan has been going strong for almost 20 years.

We sat with him and casually discussed meditation. At some point he asked what I had gained from my meditation practice. I proudly replied “a calm, clear and tranquil mind.” He then asked “what about wisdom?” Hmmm, I guess I never thought about wisdom that often. Surely I believed I was wise, but that was my ego talking. Really I had no idea what wisdom was, or what wisdom we should have, or what wisdom we could have for that matter. He vaguely described his approach to meditation which was markedly different than how I was trained in and what I had been teaching for years. Inside I felt defensive, as I’ve invested 15+ years meditating and teaching meditation in a particular way, and here was a seemingly wise man presenting another approach, something completely different. I remained defensive on the inside, but asked for his email address.

We got back to the apartment and I couldn’t stop thinking about the encounter we had at the meditation center. I emailed the director and asked to visit again before left Bangkok. He agreed to see us. We returned to the temple complex and meditation center. We meditated with him and then sat and talked. He asked me who I was, what I was? Who was I really, what was I really? After a few attempts with replies like “and energy spirit/soul having a human experience” type lines he stopped me. “You need to find out what and who you really are. Do this through meditation and study the five aggregates”. He handed me a piece of paper with the five aggregates written on it. Study this, research this, meditate on this. See if you can find the answer.

2018 was the beginning of my relationship with Hartanto and the school that he runs. I studied the five aggregates for a year. I began meditating in a new way, a completely different way than the mantra based approach I had been practicing for decades. I tried to remain open to this different approach to meditation. I began to study the mind. I investigated the five aggregates – form, consciousness, memories, perceptions and feelings. I still had feelings of resistance to this different approach to meditation since I had invested so much time in my previous practice, but something about it intrigued me. Hartanto’s story was life-changing for so many people – Hartanto himself and all the young ladies he rescued and sent to nursing school. Our “chance” encounter has surely changed my life in many ways. Stay tuned and we’ll see how this different approach to meditation has really helped me deal with this terminal diagnosis. I am no longer fearful of death. It is inevitable after all so why worry? Worrying will only make us feel worse. Let’s squeeze some more joy and laughter out of life with the time we have left.

Thanks for being engaged and remember questions are always welcomed. I love hearing from you. Get in touch if you feel the urge.