For the last couple of weeks I’ve been exploring the zen center in the city where I live. It’s this absolutely lovely buddhist temple where everyone is barefoot all the time, no shoes ever, and there’s often hot green tea, and there’s a garden full of trees.

I really like the part where I don’t have to wear shoes. (It’s probably the hobbit genetics from my grandmother.)

I’ve heard various iterations of the stories and philosophies of the buddha since I was a kid. That part of the experience – the stories, anyhow – they’re important. But for me I think the practice is becoming the most important thing.

The instructions for meditation are basically to sit perfectly still and stare at a blank wall and count to ten and breathe. And if your nose itches, don’t scratch – just notice the feeling. And when you notice your thoughts start to wander, start over with the counting. Over and over again. And we do this for like ten or fifteen or twenty minutes at a time, and then shift into walking meditation, and then return to the seat and settle in for another round. Listen to the sound the building makes and breathe and watch the thoughts tumble through.

The purpose of this is to be more fully present in this moment, not distracted by rumination over the past or worry about the future. I like that purpose, in theory.

Except that at first, I – really hate this practice. I’ve tried it before with little success. It’s one of the most uncomfortable experiences I’ve ever put myself through. Aside from one or two instances of profound physical pain, and some of the episodes when my mental illness symptoms got just exceptionally shitty, this is right up there with the most distressing moments for me.

Because my brain never fucking quiets down. This is the mind that finds patterns in dates and license plates and phone numbers, scrambles and unscrambles the letters in every brand name, connects the dots and makes triangles in the stars with invisible lines, considers the possibility of conspiracy theories, finds words inside of other words, dredges up Poor Decisions from years ago and presents them to my conscious awareness like a cat giving her gaurdian a dead bird, as a present.

Yeah. This brain. Trying to settle down.

Worse than trying to quiet down a room of 33 seventh graders. Take it from me.

At first meditation feels like getting stuck in the dark in the cold wind on the side of the mountain without a coat. It’s fucking miserable.

The counting helps.

I’m going to keep trying because there’s a promise of some kind of peacefulness on the other side of the struggle. I think – I need to practice more often at home. I may have jumped in at the deep end.

I also keep going back because the temple is beautiful.

Steve Rogers thinks so, too.