The Manifest: Launchpads

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"The Spitting Corner"

Name: Paul S.

Location: Left-Hand Canyon, CO

Comments: "I’m a broke motherfucker, so you can tell not a whole lot of cash goes into my personal Darth Vader space. This is the corner of my bedroom looking northeast. The brown meditation cushion, or zafu, was my main Christmas gift from my parents back in 1999 when I discovered Zen. Underneath it is a folded-up old bed pillow (who can afford beanbags for additional support? Not me…), and below that an afghan knitted by my late grandmother, who was the bomb. In front of the cushion, a prayer book given to me by the Amitabha Foundation of Rochester, NY, from whom I took some classes on Tibetan practice last year. To its right – and hence the title of this column – is my spit cup.

Once a day, usually after waking up and checking my email, I sit on my cushion pile and try to relax my overworked brain (I am the editor of a volunteer-only e-zine, which is ridiculously hard to maintain). Phase 1 of my practice is called: “Dude, I’m An Asshole.” Basically I tell whoever it is I feel looking down on me all the time all the bad shit I’ve done over the course of the past couple days. I confess that I have thus far wasted all the cool abilities I was born with on bullshit, instead of hooking up the universe’s dozens and dozens of suffering beings with the good time they deserve. Then (and I make this part up, but it works) I tell the Dude that I have swallowed poison, and I am going to die at any minute, and that I need him to be like a Mr. Miyagi-style guru / bodyguard while I move into Phase 2.

Phase 2, a.k.a. “Boooorrrriiinnnngggg,” is simple, or at least it would be if my brain wasn’t a goddamn landfill of information torn open by a tornado. I usually focus on my breathing, often localized in my solar plexus, and try to keep coming back to that shit for twenty minutes. Somehow this evokes the “relaxation response,” and even if my mind doesn’t grow any sharper that day, by body’s a little more chill.

Phase 3 (“Mugged by the Universe”) is probably the most important moment of the whole weird-ass session: the dedication of merit. I basically tell the Dude “yo Dude, thanks for watching my back just now,” and then I give up all the cool invisible goodies I got out of Phase 2 to this big ball of liquid-hot magma I picture hovering over my head. The ball is where all the cool shit that everyone anywhere gets out of meditation goes, and anytime a deer is wounded or a baby’s skull is being bashed in or some South American dictator has a crisis of consciousness, they get a little jolt from that big ball of happiness that the rest of us Darth Vaders created. And then I go upstairs, fry some eggs, and check out LowCulture.

Now, I’ve always been a little bit freaked out by anything that smells of the New Age, religious dogma, Oprah, or anything else that sets off my cheese alarm. To keep me grounded, I’ve placed in the corner this kick-ass watercolor (see detail above) I bought for like ten bucks at an art festival in Buffalo while I was drunk as a whiskey truck full of monkeys. There’s some cute girl sitting on a rock, and she’s looking up to see someone flying. Notice that there are no angels, rainbows, dolphins, pink hearts, or hippie-looking trolls in this picture: it’s raw and unadorned--the way I like my realization."

Submit a photo of your own meditation space along with a brief bio and description of your space and the practices you use it for to launchpads@the-manifest.org.

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