Eat, Pray, Love

On the other hand—when is it a good time of day, or life, to sit in detached stillness?
When isn’t there something buzzing about, trying to distract you and get a rise out of you? So
I made a decision (inspired again by my Guru’s instruction that we are to become scientists of
our own inner experience). I presented myself with an experiment—what if I sat through this
for once? Instead of slapping and griping, what if I sat through the discomfort, just for one
hour of my long life?
So I did it. In stillness, I watched myself get eaten by mosquitoes. To be honest, part of
me was wondering what this little macho experiment was meant to prove, but another part of
me well knew—it was a beginner’s attempt at self-mastery. If I could sit through this nonlethal
physical discomfort, then what other discomforts might I someday be able to sit through?
What about emotional discomforts, which are even harder for me to endure? What about jeal-
ousy, anger, fear, disappointment, loneliness, shame, boredom?
The itch was maddening at first but eventually it just melded into a general burning feeling
and I rode that heat to a mild euphoria. I allowed the pain to lose its specific associations and
become pure sensation—neither good nor bad, just intense—and that intensity lifted me out
of myself and into meditation. I sat there for two hours. A bird might very well have landed on
my head; I wouldn’t have noticed.
Let me be clear about one thing. I recognize that this experiment wasn’t the most stoic act
of fortitude in the history of mankind, and I’m not asking for a Congressional Medal of Honor
here. But there was something mildly thrilling for me about realizing that in my thirty-four
years on earth I have never not slapped at a mosquito when it was biting me. I’ve been a pup-
pet to this and to millions of other small and large signals of pain or pleasure throughout my
life. Whenever something happens, I always react. But here I was—disregarding the reflex. I
was doing something I’d never done before. A small thing, granted, but how often do I get to
say that? And what will I be able to do tomorrow that I cannot yet do today?
When it was all over, I stood up, walked to my room and assessed the damage. I counted
about twenty mosquito bites. But within a half an hour, all the bites had diminished. It all goes
away. Eventually, everything goes away.
Eat, Pray, Love