baptism

From the few posts already on this blog, you will probably have realised that Watashi-wa often feels tense and ill at ease. This can happen on the most perfect day, in the most beautiful surroundings, when really I shouldn’t have a care in the world. It is not so much anxiety, or even depression, but rather just a sense that things aren’t right. Typically, I will then cast around for something in the outside world which will justify these feelings: there’s something I haven’t done which I need to, for example. When I find that ‘thing’, whatever it is, I can then fixate on it, and my malaise makes sense.

However, I have got to a point where I can no longer pull the wool over my own eyes. It is not the things in the world that cause my feeling of being ill at ease. Rather, the feeling is primary, and then I look for things in the world to try to justify it.

Have I always felt this? Not in childhood, as far as I can recall. I remember my childhood as a very blessed time. And after that, in adolescence and early adulthood? Perhaps, although I was less attuned to my own inner state back then. Also, excitement, adventure, and human society were all effective distractions, and I committed to them wholeheartedly.

And now? Well, the distractions don’t work as well as they used to. Partly, that is because I don’t have as much energy with which to indulge them. But also, now that I realise they are distractions rather than cures, they hold less appeal for me.

So what to do?

Meditation helps, and it is a practice I am committed to. I ‘meet’ every morning via Zoom with a few friends from the Zen centre. We sit for 50 minutes, and then usually have a short chat afterwards.

The other morning I sat with alertness and focus, and my awareness felt harmonised by the session. It was a pleasure to chat with my dharma brothers. But half an hour later, I once again felt tense and fragmented. I suppose I could have sat again, but if that is to be the pattern of my days, I should really just go and live in a monastery.

Yesterday morning I arrived in Crete. I am here to get baptised in the Greek Orthodox faith. My priest, who is originally Scottish and whom I know from Athens, has been attached to a Convent here since January. He suggested that the best preparation for baptism would be to attend the Holy Week services at the Convent, so that is what I am doing.

The ferry arrived early in the morning. I disembarked and drove straight to the Convent, where I attended the 6am service. I was a bit tired, and of course the Byzantine Greek of the services goes way over my head. But within 10 minutes of being in the chapel, I felt a calmness that I haven’t felt for months. When you are used to almost constant tension, and to the feeling that something is not quite right, then that calmness is a tremendous balm. It reliably arises whenever I visit monasteries here in Greece. I have no idea why it happens, but I have given up trying to explain everything. All I can say is that my soul feels at peace. And that is why I want to be baptised.