everal months later I found myself sweating in the south of Thailand on a vipassana retreat, regularly checking my concrete-slab bed for scorpions. I
was actually learning a tool--vipassana--for loosening the attachments that
were causing so much pain. After experiencing ten
days of this simple, direct, and utterly profound technique, I was sold.
I followed the retreat with a series of
three-month retreats (interspersed with jobs telemarketing Disney books and waitressing at a sushi bar).
What problems might a young person encounter?
n some respects, my youth has made me more
available to Buddhism. I have no family to support, no fabulous career I can't bear to interrupt, no
children. I own few things, and my health is good. My lack of
responsibilities seems like another good argument for other young people to
join up. But they're not drawn to it. Probably because, like me, they are drawn to
mainstream culture and the pleasures of the physical world.
love Coffee Toffee Crunch Ice Cream and
Star Trek (Next Generation) and flirting. I love late-night telephone gossip and subversive art. I love
being in wild nature and wandering the streets of San Francisco. I love new
clothes and new friends. I also love the planet and feel the need to do
something about its destruction. Few of these are contradictory to
Buddhism. It's just that a focus on any of them might take me away from the
practice of letting go, of quieting my mind enough to see that holding on
to something transitory is only going to lead to trouble.
erhaps because I'm young and new to these
pleasures, I don't have the perspective of someone twice my age. Although I know theoretically that
sensory pleasures are insubstantial, impermanent, incapable of providing
genuine happiness, I haven't seen enough of them for myself. Instead, I
want to experience the fullness of life.
