My mind is as calm as a toddler on Pixie Stix. When I’m troubleshooting some irksome technology problem at work or when I’m untangling some accidental plot knot in a story, the hyped-up toddler proves useful. But unlike real sugar rushes, my mind doesn’t have a sugar crash. It will make like the energizer bunny and keep going and going and going…That’s why I meditate.
My childhood was filled with pop culture references to the far east. From Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Wolverine & Mariko Yoshida; from Snake Eyes to Transformers; from Tom feeding me a steady diet of anime with the likes to Starblazers, Gunsmith Cats, Ranma ½, Guyver, to my own devouring the movies of Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Michelle Yeoh, and Chow Yun-Fat, the east was part of this western boy’s upbringing. So when I took a world religions course my senior year in high school, my belief in Calvinist predestination transformed (see what I did there?) into Buddhist karma.
I began to fitfully meditate then and there. Well not then and there. My teacher would have frowned upon that. When I was at home, I would attempt to sit quietly with my eyes closed. Even at 18, I knew I was an introvert, so the whole sitting quietly thing was a piece of pie (no, not cake). On the outside. It proved problematic to get to the whole sitting-without-thinking thing down. I’d be able to stay focused for a breath or two before thinking about my homework or about the conspiracy surrounding Bruce Lee’s death. Luckily, it’s the journey not the destination. While enlightenment is the goal, the meditative journey is just as important.
Not to mention a great way to cope with tough times.
The summer after my senior year of high school was rife with challenges. My job got liquidated, my girlfriend left me for a very close friend, my parents split up, and my timorous mama’s boy self went away to college.
Meditation allows me to stop the snowballing doom-thinking. It allows me to just sit with the emotions, to let them flow through me and pass on. For the first few years, it was a struggle to sit for any more than five minutes. Through my twenties, I gradually built up my practice to twenty minutes. Rounding the bend of my thirties, that twenty minutes became a daily sojourn. In my late thirties, it became not just daily but thirty minutes.. I’ve meditated for 30 minutes every morning for eight years now.
My morning mediation allows me to set the tone for the day. It allows me to prepare myself for another deaf day in the hearing world. It allows me to practice staying in the moment and letting go of delusions and attachments. As I actively listen to people throughout my day, I try to let go of the delusion that I can hear like others; of the attachment that I want the conversation to go “huh?” free; of the delusion that there’s something wrong with me; of the attachment that it’s my fault that I’m making the conversation harder.
In the past few years, I’ve started to shake off the delusion of hearing equality by self-identifying as hard of hearing. I practice letting go of the attachment of wishing my hearing were different. I practice staying in the moment, even if that moment is a frightful disaster of frayed nerves and muddled intentions. So many things affect my hearing to make active listening harder.The receding hairline of my cochlear, my familiarity of the topic, how much sleep I got, my surroundings, how many people I’m talking to, and my anxiety level, all make hearing harder.
As a conversation continues, I take stock of how it’s going. Are we sailing along breezily? Or are we up that proverbial creek with nary a paddle in sight? For nigh on 40 years, I tried to either pretend I could hear everything or control a conversation so I could limit the word choices my overwrought ears had to match to the spoken words. It was very anxiety provoking. Which meant I was accustomed to making listening harder for myself.
Then suddenly, slowly, with rapid measured steps, my meditation practice paid off. That’s not to say I’m some mystical crouching tiger or legendary hidden dragon who can think a thing and POOF make it happen. My life isn’t a movie.
Once, twice, thrice, I was able to sit in the moment of utter listlessness. I had no frigging idea what the patron, the coworker, the friend had just said. And so I dropped anchor on the conversation. I found myself practicing what Pema Chodron calls “discomfort resilience”. I’m not always successful, but at least I’m making a mockery of Yoda’s teaching and trying.
To help my trying to sit with my discomfort, I turned to technology. Since I meditate before work, the anxiety of meditating “too well” and being late was too great. So I started using an app called Insight Timer. I set it for 30 minutes with only a Han Chi Gong softly chiming at five minute intervals to help me reset my mind. But then my tinnitus came to the fore. Now the boon of not having to actively listen whilst meditating became the bane of not having anything to mask the noises that were, literally, all in my head, I was able to draw on my practice and let go of the anxiety. Most of the time.
I’d been hearing things that were all in my head off and on science I was fourteen. It was hard to deal with then, but it always faded after a few minutes, an hour at most. I don’t remember when the hearing gods decided to play their cruel joke by making it stick around for good.
“You can’t hear well? How about a noise that you can’t NOT hear?!”
Gee, thanks dudes.
After the joke was played, I added monks chanting or winter fire to mask the tinnitus.Insight Timer has a bunch of ambient noises that I can choose from. Good thing, too, because the monster the herding dogs sent would become accustomed to the ambient noise and the roaring and ringing; the droning and humming would eventually break though. Fortunately, just like ancient Greek myths, there is now a hero to fight back against the gods. But if you want to read about The Lenire, here’s a series of posts I wrote while going through the first 12 weeks of my use.
I’ll just say here that I’ve been using bimodal neuromodulation for 10 months now. And writing about using the Insight Timer makes me look forward to January; when I’ll go back to it. The Lenire has made things better. But like my hearing successes, my tinnitus ebbs and flows. And it’s made me grateful for being able to turn towards mediation. I’ve even started to stop telling myself I’m meditating wrong because that thirty minutes is still thoughtful. Those intervals where I’m in the moment are fewer than those moments with my mind is awhirl with thoughts. But I’m ok with that. It’s the way things are. For now.
Meditating in the morning helps set the mindful platform to stand upon in the afternoon. It helps me set the tone to try. To acknowledge my lack. To ask for help. My meditation practice is like a self-fulfilling prophecy: it helps me sit in discomfort in the mediation. I used to say that I can tell the difference between days I meditate and days I don’t. But I can’t say that anymore. I don’t remember what it’s like to go through the day as a hard or hearing dude in a world not made for me without having meditated.
My meditation,
Hearing with more than my ears.
Practice not perfect.
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