After the hurly burly wing wham chaotic fun of DPCON12, the following day, I attended a one day meditation course.  Nuts, huh ?

Arriving at the venue 45 minutes early,  I sat at the balcony, overlooking one of Australia’s iconic beach views and tried to think about what I was planning to get out of all of this.  Or at the least, switch into “right frame of mind”.  Whatever that meant.

But the view was breathtaking and the weather was superb.  I became distracted.  Being more enticed to taking photos, Instagramming and tweeting (Great start to finding inner-peace, Grace), I rummaged through my hand-bag to find my phone.  Amongst the jungle of mess and used tissues, I came across a blasted parking ticket I thought I had actually lost a couple of weeks ago.

In the middle of the shopping mall, I had searched everywhere for that stupid tiny piece of paper, tipping my bag upside down, inside out to no avail.  Begrudgingly, I coughed up the $50 fine.  The rest of that day, my mind festered on my stupidity.  There’s nothing worse than paying a hefty penalty for what could have easily  been avoided.

Weeks later…there it was. Tucked quietly in one of the pages of my diary.  All that tension resurfaced again.  Damn.  Perfect timing for someone who was about to go on a search for enlightenment and inner peace.

Taking my seat near the front, there was the sudden urge to hone in. Really engage myself.

A Buddhist nun took her seat at the podium.  Delicately posed, one hand over the other neatly on her lap, her voice was just as gentle as her demeanour.

It’s hard  to explain in detail what she actually spoke about.  Only to say there was a natural, casual flow and it made perfect sense.  The entire day was devoted to working through that burning question of how to obtain true happiness.  (Ah, gotta get me some of that).

Quietly and gently, this lady reminded us that while we look for it in all the wrong places – money, career, big house, fancy car, perfect car – happiness actually derives from inner peace.  Which in turn, comes from a sense of mindfulness and stillness in your mind.

Wow.  Okay.

Meditation is the tool for us to obtain that.

Mmmmm…Keep talkin’…

Listening to this lady, watching her constantly polite, courteous smile, she was there to help me connect the dots.

From where I am today to where I really want to be. Or more specifically, the potential to where I can be.

Isn’t that a little too “out there” ?

Thing is, this mind is restless.  It habitually wanders over to everyday worries and woes.  It’s become a place for pent up anger and angst.  It spends a lot of precious time being stuck on tiny hair pin, meaningless problems.   A misplaced parking ticket proved that.

Throughout the day, we had 6 meditation sessions with each lasting 15 minutes.  An hour and a half of sitting still.  That’s a lot of sitting still.

But boy, surprisingly there was a lot of spring cleaning to do in my head.  And if there is a solution that can help me clear out the emotional junk and the mental clutter, to leave some space for clarity…why not ? I say.

Leaving the course, there was my personal commitment to meditate every morning for 10 minutes.  Shamefully, a few mornings have been skipped since, but I keep trying to get back on that bike.  There’s hope that it will eventually become second nature to me.

I must be quite excited by what I’ve learnt so far.  Back at home as I summed up my day to him, Mr Surfer even asked if I was thinking about becoming Buddhist.

Nah, not for me.  But I can see some relevance to keep finding out more.

I’m booked in for another course in 2 weeks.

Hopefully this time, I won’t be giving two hoots about some tiny ticket.