Dear Siddhartha
a letter to mark my 200th day of practice & meditation
Dear Siddahrtha,
Today is my 200th day of Red Tara Practice and Meditation. I did not believe I would come this far, in fact, I didn’t even plan to. When I first started on this journey, I just wanted to go back to studying and practicing Buddhism. You know some things shape us when we are children, but sometimes it isn’t until so much later that we even begin to understand just how deep the marks go. I started on my Buddhist journey when I was a young girl, because both my mother and my grandfather were attending the temple and getting in touch with this tradition, particularly my grandfather. I suppose part of my desire to return to Buddhism, was a way to reconnect with him after he passed away.
Since I first got in touch with it many years passed and while I was growing up I strayed from this path. Of course, moving to different cities, and eventually to another country, might have pushed me even farther from it, with the grind of the daily life, some things end up forgotten simply because there seems not to be enough time to do all we want to. After my grandfather passed away in the fall of 2021, I tried going back to my practice, tried to reconnect with it, but it was just too painful at the time. I wasn’t ready.
I had already tried meditation before, in a non-religious context, because of my anxiety. At first, I used apps with guided meditations without much regularity to it, simply because it helped me calm down but later one of my therapists had told me it would be a beneficial thing to keep a frequent meditation practice, because of its numerous benefits of mindfulness, slowing your brain down, and staying grounded.
It wasn’t until the summer of 2024—or exactly, 200 days ago—that I began to have a daily practice integrated into my routine. I think the funniest thing about this is that despite being a serial planner (yes I am a Virgo with a J on my MBTI) I never actually planned to practice and meditate daily. It just sort of happened. I guess that’s life for you.
It seems a bit wild to say this, but I am not the same person I was 200 days ago when I started this. But it’s true. First I was thinking that I was overreaching it, but then as I read more about Buddhism I realized that it made perfect sense within the Buddhist perspective, because what it teaches us is that the self is not a fixed entity but rather a process, so actually what I ended up realizing is that I was never one single, unchanging person to begin with. I hope to reach 365 days of daily practice and by that time I won’t be the same as I am now. And I am okay with that.
It’s hard for me to admit that for a long time I was scared of change, that I wished things could stay the same way forever. That changes hurt. I’m not saying I have become this super enlightened being that is above everything and none of this hurts me anymore, because it does. A lot of things actually do hurt me. I am just learning how to look at them in a different way, to experience them in a different way. Change is scary, but at the top of my 27 years I can say that I am learning how to get along with it.
My experience wasn’t, of course, the same throughout the whole process. It has changed dramatically. Initially, I obviously did not sit still for as much as I do now at day 200, indeed one of the things I have observed is that not every day is the same, not everyday I have the same disposition, or focus, or even can immerse myself in it as much as I want. I have learned to have compassion for myself, to allow for the days when I can’t really get into it to also be a part of the process. I choose to accept that I would rather practice consistently, rather than practice perfectly.
More recently now, just after day 180, I have discovered a different excitement for meditation. I have been longing for this moment during my practice, when I get to just breathe and count the beads on my mala, and simply exist. In one of the teachings of my Lama he mentioned that he wished he could meditate in a sensory-deprivation chamber, so as not a single thing disturbed him. It made me smile because I had had the exact same thought before, not just relating to meditation itself, but as a means to cope with such a noisy and stimulating world, I often find myself wishing for that sensory-deprivation chamber, to be able to shut everything out, just close the door and be in the quiet. Alas, that isn’t possible, and what the Lama said was to incorporate the sounds of the world into your meditation focus. That really changed things for me, because I began to notice the sounds, and not be so bothered by them, but rather use them in my favour.
That was an important thing to apply into my meditation, and I know that if now I am able to focus better, it was only because in the past I began to not give the outside noises so much importance.
Another thing that I have observed, and that might sound a bit strange at first, is that sometimes it feels to me as if the meditative state is more real, than reality itself. My first reaction to this was thinking that I was a bit weird for thinking that, but upon reading some texts about what the Buddhist tradition says about this, I ended up finding validation for my feelings. I won’t get too philosophical about this, that is not the point here, but it’s basically this: in our daily life the thoughts, emotions and sensory experiences we have create a kind of turbulence, much like waves on the surface of the ocean. In meditation, you may be able to experience the stillness beneath the waves—the vast, deep, and silent awareness that has always been there. This stillness, free from mental agitation, feels more real because it is not dependent on external conditions. Or in other words; you are glimpsing a state of awareness that is less conditioned by illusion, attachment, and ego.
And that is not all, because as much as I enjoy those moments, what I have also been observing is how the meditation is transforming my daily life, after it has already ended, in shaping how I interact with the world. How I feel more calm, less reactive, more able to think before I speak or act, how certain events have lost their weight and are simply things that happen to me, they do not define me.
I suppose I could go on and on about this, because truthfully it has shocked me, the depth of change and growth this experience has embedded into myself. I know that this may be the first time I’ve talked about this topic, but it certainly won’t be the last. Here’s to more 200 days of practice. Here’s to a full year of meditation. Here’s to you Siddartha. I hope you know how much you mean to me.
Your friend,
February 28th, 2025.