Doing it Wrong: Lessons from a Divided Mind

I’d stopped at a small roadside stupa to stretch my legs and circumambulate the prayer wheel inside. Prayer flags snapped in the morning breeze and a brass sun vaulted in a cloudless sky.

Stupas are supposed to be places of serenity and meditation. But I did not feel serene or meditative; I did not feel prayerful. They are supposed to be a place where you can go to be alone. But I was not alone. My thoughts tore at me like jagged teeth: you’ll never be happy. You don’t deserve it. I need stillness in a place like that. I need to hear the wind rushing quietly through the prayer flags, unwinding thread by thread each faithful plea. But it was my mind unraveling instead.

I went inside and rested my hand against the big brass wheel. I remembered the monks walking around the temple in McLeod Ganj, in the foothills of the Himalayas. I closed my eyes. Saw them walking in the late-evening light tinted hazy gold from the cooking fires. Tears sprang to my eyes as if stung by the smoke; I longed to return there. It had been so long; which way were they going? Spinning the prayer wheels, but in what direction? I could not remember — my mind saw their saffron robes, but not which hands they rested on the wheels, not which direction they walked. I hesitated, then started walking to the right.