Vipassana Meditation
Recently I received an acceptance letter from the good folks over at the Philippine Vipassana registration committee. Starting October 19, 2005, and after years of unhappiness as a striving egotistical yuppie, I will embark on a grueling 10 day quest for spiritual enlightenment and renouncement of worldly sins.
And when I say grueling, I MEAN grueling. Vipassana meditation requires one to undergo twelve hours of silent meditation beginning at 4:00am, with small breaks for minimalist vegetarian food but none for conversing.
The precepts of Vipassana meditation include:
1.) Abstaining from killing any living creature;
2.) To abstain from stealing;
3.) To abstain from all sexual activity;
4.) To abstain from telling lies;
5.) To abstain from all intoxicants.
6.) To abstain from eating after midday;
7.) To abstain from sensual entertainment
8.) To abstain from using high or luxurious beds.
I have never seen the word abstain used so many times before and in my opinion the list of precepts is superfluous in the sense that all it means is that “Your social life is going to be severely atrophied and you’re never ever gonna touch yourself again, let alone, shag another girl.”
Yep, if yours truly would religiously abide by the precepts of vipassana, I would forever be celibate starting October 19. Celibate and sober.
But with staunch advocates like Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo swearing by the positive effects of mental purification Vipassana meditation brings about, how could one go wrong?
Besides, I’ve been receiving a lot of comments on how I should keep my insanity on a tolerable level. Yes Maggie I’m talking about you.
Click the MORE button below or your nipples will turn black and fall off.
went out with Nisha and nobody’s going to make a big fuss out of it.
Right? What’s wrong with celebrating a monthsary of an uninteresting
event? What’s wrong with the word monthsary?
Anyway,
we decided to try one of these fancy schmancy Mediterranean restos in
the city but not without giving mutual nods to go Dutch.I’m a
cheapskate like that, I know.I remember before when I used to have a
considerable number of misgivings when I took women to fancy
restaurants. I mean, if my parents did one thing right, they educated
me heavily on manners and dinner etiquette as I was growing up, and
that sort of stuff helps. Come to think of it though, you sit down in a
really swanky restaurant where the entrees alone cost as much as your
entire weekly food allowance and you come to an abrupt realization that
there are a gazillion things you can screw up.Or so my friend Murphy says.
In
places like these, you come across these tiny liturgies you have to
abide with often without leads from anyone. For instance, there are
twenty forks and sixty knives sitting in front of me and every one of
them serves a different purpose for different courses of the meal. That
sucks when you’re obliged to know the use of each one of them based on
their size alone. Like this small fork over here, it’s the soup fork
I’m sure. But why do I need a fork for my soup?
And there’re the things you’re not supposed to do like trying to reuse any of aforementioned utensils.
You have to wait for them to be replaced by the waiter.And although I’m
a hillbilly who’d rather have Red Horse beer than fancy wine, I’d have
to listen intently when the waiter reads through their extensive wine
selections and feign interest even if I don’t want any. Then the waiter
comes up to you with this exquisite wooden grinder at which point you’d
be forced to have pressed pepper on your appetizer because you’re
worried that you might offend him…
I shrink and shrink until I’m gone; nothing to make out of me.
oh what the hell went wrong? my heart gets pulled out
into your direction. It’s no use, you have forsaken me.” I sing with Anneke van Gierbsergen as her sullenly yearning voice wafted from the speakers of my car stereo.
“Seriously Mike, if you can sing the song so good, why don’t we just turn off the fucking stereo?” My friend Jay said bitingly.
“What’s
up with you dude?Are you PMSing or something?You’ve been a total dick
all day.” I said hitting him over the head with an empty water bottle.
“Oww!
Motherfucker! You want to know why? Because I can’t stand this shit
you’re listening to! It sounds too much like Evanescence and it’s
killing me.” He said trying to wrestle the bottle from my hand.
“Jesus!
Stop it! You’re going to get us both killed!” I say trying to keep the
car on the road and seize control of the bottle at the same time.
“And
you don’t know what you’re talking about dude. The Gathering is miles
above Evanescence in the sense that the former succeeds in delivering
haunting yet beautiful melodies using tepid female vocals that goes
along well with their heavier backdrop.Evanescence is just goth-pop
trash.”I added with a smug smile as the ten second water bottle
wrestling match reached its conclusion with me emerging victorious.
It
took a while for my last comment to sink in and make itself funny. Did
I just say that? Music reviews are generally funny, check out Amazon.com’s reviews
specifically on metal albums and you’ll see what I mean. Reviewers have
this habit of using phony, artsy-craftsy words to try and exude an aura
of being urbanely cultured. Check this one out:
