A personal blog about learning meditation techniques.

This new blog of mine is going to follow my journey into learning meditation. Originally, I was taught how to meditate in the zazen style by Fukushima Keido Roshi. He spoke at the Claremont Colleges, and I ditched high school to go. Young and nieve I thought enlightenment would hit instantly, and without hard work. Needless to say it didn’t.

I didn’t practice much, so I didn’t get much out of it.

Several years later, my wife signed me up for a meditation class at a retreat near our house in Sacramento. It was led by and ex-ISKCON hari krishna. He taught mantra meditation using japa beads. We learned the maha mantra (Hari Krishna, Hair Krishna etc.). I still have the japa beads, and occasionally I still try it. I practiced it a lot at first, but didn’t see results. I guess since I had no faith/belief in a blue hindu deity, maybe it wouldn’t work… I hope that makes sense.

A few years later, I was looking for a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance when I ran across Brad Warners Hardcore Zen. I bought that too, having grown up on punk rock, I thought it would be interesting. It honestly blew my mind. Changed the way I saw Buddhism, and meditation. Then my dad died, and sitting at his funeral, what Brad wrote hit me like a ton of bricks. It was like it all made sense.

I didn’t practice meditation though. And soon, it kind of slipped away.

A couple year after that, I stopped by the Clear Light Buddhist Center, Phoenix, AZ. This was the first place it really clicked. Something about the meditation class, I really got into. But for some reason, I didn’t go back.

Now, a couple years later, I am stressed out beyond normal. I wake up in the middle of the night and my mind will be racing. My anger threshold is about 0, and my son has had some medical issues lately, that have me questioning everything again.

I started reading The Buddha Walks into a Bar and everything I learned before has been coming back to the front of my mind. I am experiencing suffering (in the buddhist since), and I feel like I don’t know how to cope. I am going to start meditating again, and I feel like I definitely need a teacher this time. I am planning on returning to the Clear Light Buddhist Center, and actually trying to attend regularly.

This site will be my meditation journal, more so I can see where I have come from, and look back on my journey. I hope that you as a reader, get something out of it as well.

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