"Oh yeah. We're tried both types of ads, an Eastern and a Western. We're testing out different marketing strategies."
I snapped to attention, my fantasy of the hazy Eastern landscape shattering into a million cosmic pieces. Marketing strategies?
Eventually, after about six people had settled down in our meeting room, the Boston Meditation Society began their "Meditation Intensive". Larry, a genial-looking, balding guy, did the first part of the talk. He explained that he and Steve--a younger, tanner, track-star type--are computer analysts in New York who lead perfectly average lives expect for the fact that they are serious students of meditation. These sessions, they said, were the result of their desire to share their experiences and discoveries with a larger group.
Their aim is to prove that meditation is not an activity reserved for "flakes." In essence, it is just a way to cope with the hassles of today's world. They themselves are your average Manhattan professionals: they work out, listen to classical music and drink coffee (to keep them from falling asleep while meditation in morning). Meditation gets them through their subway commutes to work. They are people like us.
And, Steve added, we are all alike because the fact that we're here today means that we mediated in a past life.
Quickly, Steve and Larry explained the basics of several meditation traditions, among them the Southern Buddhist tradition, which focuses on breathing patterns. Their own method, they said, is a hybrid of several traditions. But, they said, the goal of any sort of meditation is to lose yourself, to become so detached from your everyday existence that your thoughts simply drift through your head without your becoming preoccupied by them. Eventually, they explained, you stop "thinking" all together.
Perfect, I thought, Now was the time to try.
Our first meditation experience was supposed to last only ten minutes, but it seemed like forever. The room was very still, but was flooded by the loud New Age music Steve and Larry played on their portable Discman. I tried very hard to "lose myself," in the music (and in my own inner being), but I was distracted by the sight of a bunch of people perched on conference room chairs trying to be serene. We were told to focus on an object in the room, to put all our attention on that thing and not waver. But my object of attention, a fragment of the pattern in the carpet, just did not fixate my soul. I envied Larry, who, sitting in a lotus position on top of his chair, looked like the Dalai Lama in a dark blue suit. Maybe I just didn't have what it takes.
Larry and Steve, however, were pleased by our session, and informed us that our collective meditation had "cleared out the room. "I'm not sure exactly what they meant by that, but it seemed very cosmic.
After another coffee break (don't want to fall asleep during an inner journey), we had another try at mediation. For this session I sat on the floor rather than in my chair, and had more success. Despite their suits and their Discman, Steve and Larry did seem to be onto something.
Their final wrap-up put me off, however. When they started talking about their teacher, a State University of New York English professor-turned spiritual leader, I got really suspicious. I wanted to ask them exactly why they felt it necessary to drive up to Boston to educate the masses, what made them the Boston Meditation Society, and why they were offering these sessions, which they said they planned to continue to hold every week indefinitely, for free.
But I didn't ask. I didn't want to upset the order of the cosmos.