Meditation on Foulness: the Buddha advised those who are ardent on attaining nirvana (release) to contemplate the body's manifold impurities.
While I appreciated my "sangha," or community, I didn't get into Buddhism personally until I was 16. I was graduating from high school and figured that before I left my teenage home (Karme Chöling, a Buddhist meditation center in rural Vermont) I'd say goodbye to all that by doing a weeklong meditation retreat. Nine hours of meditation a day, including zen-style meals.
And that's when I finally, personally, fell in love with Buddhism. Meditation, I belatedly realized, wasn't just some way of avoiding living life. It wasn't boring. It was...to use a word I generally avoid...transformative. I could enjoy life from a clear, open, sane, relaxed point of view (and as a teenager, that was one h*lluva discovery).
So I canceled my summer travel plans and stayed and studied and partied and meditated and worked (as a lumberjack) at Karme Chöling for a year. Along the way, I learned a whole h*ll of a lot. One of the funny little things that's stuck with me is how to wake oneself from that exquisite pain that is lust or having a crush on someone. More>>
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