Gong strikes at 4am. First strike, 15 minutes early. Second strike, better get your butt out of bed. Third strike, last call. Meditation goes from 4:30am to 6:30am. Then break for breakfast. Which is oatmeal with simmered prunes. And tea, soy milk, rice milk. No coffee. I’m definitely going to die. Now. NOW! I don’t want to wait for the 10 days then die. I wanna die right now! Anything, anything, but this. I can’t do the early wake up. I can’t do the Noble Silence. I can’t do the meditation. I can’t and I won’t. This is stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Oh God .. I feel so useless … and stupid. All these searches for spiritual meaning now leading me here. I’m wasting 10 days of my life, rotting in this place. This is a cult, and people are just assigning the name of Buddha to it.

2pm: I’m going through one of my panic attacks. I feel like screaming, running home. Except that I don’t have the car. I’m so closed to being insane. The line between sanity and insanity is so fine… I need to be careful. I don’t want to become locked up like Jack Nicholson in that movie. I forgot its title … The thought of being confined in here drives me utterly crazy. My brain feels like bursting at the thought of imprisonment. My heart races, I am angry and scared. I can’t even breathe…

All day today, doing nothing productive but meditating and taking breaks now and then to stretch, then back to meditating. I know now that I can’t meditate. My monkey mind jumps up and down, back and forth. My mind has a mind of its own. I walked the trails many times today to burn off my energy and frustration. Oh, Dr. Irani! Why? Why? Why? Why put me through this test? I rather have another heart surgery than this. I wish for a sleeping pill. I wish for an earthquake that would engulf this whole place. I and others will be saved, of course.

Why the complete silence? We were born with a tongue, so we can talk! Otherwise, we would have been born dumb and deaf, wouldn’t we? And why the need to meditate so much? I can understand meditating for 1-2 hours. But 13 hours a day! Gimme a break! This is a mental institution! I miss civilization. I miss someone to talk to. I realize even when I was home alone, I was not alone. I had the phone, internet, email, music …. Here, nothing. I’m not even allowed to write this. So I broke the rules … when did I not … oh well …

According to the first discourse, we’re going through a major surgical operation of the mind, without anesthesia. So expect pain from the mind and the body, expressed by doubts, anger, sickness, revolt, depression, despair. Day1 and Day6 are the worst. And everyday will be painful until we come out of the surgery. Whatever …. cult leaders say whatever thay want you to hear. I want to retain my mind, and I HATE this place.

I HATE THIS PLACE!