Hobbling Toward Humility

Image credit: Photo by [desta] on Flickr Licensed under Creative Commons

When I was a child, my mother used to drag me off to church every Sunday. Oh, how I hated it, and I told her so. "I hated going to church when I was little too," she told me, "But then, when I was older, things got hard, and I found comfort in those rituals from my childhood. One day, you are going to need God, and you will have this to come back to." When my life started to spin out of control five years ago -- when both autism and sex addiction simultaneously became part of the language of our household -- I knew she was at least partially right; I did need a higher power to lean on, but I was still too deeply bitter toward the religion of my youth to derive comfort from it. So, I did what any twenty-first century spiritual seeker would do: I googled "Buddhism" and found a meditation center within a somewhat reasonable driving distance.

I asked my husband to accompany me to a newcomers' meditation session, hoping both for support and to, er, "persuade" him to walk this particular spiritual path with me. I had never meditated or been to a Buddhist ceremony before before, and I listened nervously to the instructions, hoping to get everything just right and not appear to be what I actually was: clueless. I was unfamiliar with the practices and rituals; the very things my mother had hoped to provide for me. I wouldn't have to wander into a church and figure out what to do with the holy water or how to give the proper response to the priest's call, but here I was lost. And I didn't know how to be vulnerable without seeming weak, so when the instructor reassured us that it would be hard to sit still, I took it not as comfort and encouragement, but as a challenge. This at least I was going to get right. Other people might not be able to sit still, but I was going to be the best meditator ever. I was going to win the meditation medal. I was going to show them all who could sit still.

So I sat. For forty five minutes. And didn't move an inch except for the soft rise and fall of my breath. I could feel my legs aching and my feet falling asleep, but I didn't budge. I heard other people rustling around and laughed internally, because I was totally winning. A chime sounded, ending the meditation, and I felt disoriented but triumphant. I couldn't feel my feet at all. Everyone else was standing up, so I (being the gold medalist newcomer) tried to follow along dutifully, but my foot — cramped, bloodless and numb from sitting — couldn't bear the weight. I heard a loud pop as my ankle buckled and I collapsed on the floor in front of a room of silently stunned Buddhists, who very kindly gathered me up from the floor and told me they'd been there too once.

And the winner is? Not me. I hobbled out, leaning on my husband and shivering from shock and embarrassment. We went off to the closest emergency room to have my rapidly swelling ankle x-rayed and diagnosed as a bad sprain, but fortunately not a break.

The foot healed slowly, but my ego not so much; it was (thankfully) quite shaken. Since then, I have been keeping up a meditation practice in my own home, but I hadn't been back to the meditation center in years. There were lots of good reasons, of course. I have two young children, and it's hard to get away. But the main thing holding me back hasn't been my busy schedule, it has been fear. This is something new, something I don't know, something I have to learn from scratch. And there is nothing scarier for me than learning, than admitting I don't know, than being vulnerable.

I promised myself that I would finally go back. It has taken five years of recovery work to feel like I could even make that promise to myself and another two months to work up the courage to carry out that resolution once I had made it. This week, I went back at last. I was anxious every mile of road I drove and every step I walked to get in. I didn't chant the right words or bow at all the times I was supposed to. And as I sat in meditation, my chest tightened with fear when I felt my foot falling asleep. I didn't sit perfectly still. In fact, I didn't perfectly anything. But I showed up. And this time I was willing to admit that there was lots I didn't know and I was willing to admit there was lots I still thought I knew (but was probably wrong about). I followed the leads and accepted help of people who knew more than I did and hoped they didn't remember me as the chick who crashed and burned five years ago. And afterwards, I promised them, and myself, that I'd be back and try again.

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This post was originally published at The Second Road.