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Finding peace in meditation

Misery played its part in bringing Kelsang Chenma to her role as a Buddhist nun.
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Classes offered: Kelsang Chenma encourages meditation as a way to bring change and happiness into life

Misery played its part in bringing Kelsang Chenma to her role as a Buddhist nun.

Chenma used to be a foster parent, a vocation which began years ago in the middle of the night. A young girl arrived at her door in a rainstorm.

“She said she was camping and was so cold. She looked 10 at the most.”

From there, Chenma became an official foster parent, taking the required courses along with her spouse.

She provided a home for a variety of  young people, some with special needs, some who were addicted to drugs, some who had turned to prostitution.

“It introduced me to some of the misery I had not known existed,” she says.

She later went through a period of about eight years during which her husband and step-father were slowly dying.

“They were in and out of nursing homes. It gave a view of life being very tricky for all of us, with no warning,” she said, adding that no one seems to be immune.

“Some of the foster children came from very wealthy homes. Misery has no bounds – and I began to catch on.”

She explains that in the Buddhist meditation classes she teaches – some of which are currently taking place in Salmon Arm – the belief is that “everyone has the capacity for happiness, no matter what’s going on in our outside world.”

Chenma was introduced to Buddhism because one of her sons became a Buddhist monk.

“He started handing over books which I didn’t open,” she says smiling, explaining that initially she was not at all interested. However, she began driving him to his classes, and listening to what he was teaching.

“I started learning without even knowing it and that was very helpful. It just evolved.”

She recounts the story of a pet she once had.

“The really surprising thing was, years before I had a beagle dog who always sat for 15 minutes without warning. I just sat steaming about this. He wouldn’t move and was too heavy to move, an overgrown beagle. He was stubborn – and more stubborn than me,” she says. “It didn’t occur to me that I could sit there having a happy mind. It taught me that eventually, you can either have an angry mind when things can’t be changed, and can grin and bear it – or you can make it the key to having happiness. The whole way you look at it can switch. It’s easier to go from anger to joy than to just figure out some way to bear it.”

Now, Chenma starts every day by spending 15 minutes meditating.

“Think of someone you love or something beautiful or a time when you were blissfully happy – everyone has something like that – it’s just a matter of starting the day with something you like, and you can come back to that,” she says, explaining that it’s possible to change from a nasty thought to a happy one in a split second.

“The thing is to value yourself and your mental equilibrium. Even if you didn’t do it for yourself. I did it for my kids. There was no point being judgmental or critical, it never helps anyone. And you have so much more fun.”

She says there are thousands of ways of meditating and they’re all useful.

“It’s our mind, we each have one, they’re all different. No one can see what you’re doing with your mind. If you’re getting happy and content, that’s your business.”

She refers once again to her smart pet.

“With the beagle, I was pretty stuck in annoyance. Any child you have can have an equally annoying trait.”

Now she thinks “someone taking 15 minutes off to be just plain happy is smart. It’s irrational not to. I switched 100 per cent because I saw what it did to people,” she says.

“People who take time out to just be quiet and peaceful and to notice things that are joyful in their lives, are so much easier to live with. I found that with my father and stepfather... One who can get on well in a nursing home setup will be much happier with the people they meet and the treatment they get than those who make anger a part of their daily life.”

The Salmon Arm meditation classes run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and are held in the library room at the SASCU Downtown Activity Centre, 451 Shuswap St. SW.

The next three: Oct. 1, 8 and 15, focus on the joy of gratitude. Classes are drop-in, run through December, and are suitable for both beginners and experienced meditators.

 



Martha Wickett

About the Author: Martha Wickett

came to Salmon Arm in May of 2004 to work at the Observer. I was looking for a change from the hustle and bustle of the Lower Mainland, where I had spent more than a decade working in community newspapers.
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