A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Aerial Yoga.

Here's what happens when people create calendars where the first day of the week is Monday: normal people, people who start their week on Sunday, stumble into a Buddhist workshop on practical happiness when they meant to show up for an aerial yoga class.

Then those people stay for three hours and ponder big topics like cause and effect, karma and emptiness, and what it really means to be happy.

If Neil hadn't been out of town, or if I'd had plans with a friend or Mad Men had been available on Netflix streaming (this was pre-July 27, mind you), I might not have stayed, but I didn't really have a reason not to. There were about a dozen people there for the workshop, and everyone was so welcoming. Not in a creepy way, either. The class was team taught by two men named David, one was tall, thin and Irish, with a receding hairline. He was a tennis coach and yoga instructor. The other was more stout and a little younger, and even though he didn't have the Irish accent on his side, he had a tone in his voice that was immediately soothing. They were tickled that I literally wandered in off the street.

The Davids explained some basic Buddhist principles, which I found helpful, and then they launched into the main point of the workshop: The Book, which is basically a practice in mindfulness. The idea is that you carry with you a blank book at all times, and each day you divide the page into six boxes. Each box is labeled with one of the principles, like "Protect Life," or "Speak Gently" (there are nine or ten principles or "perfections" as they call them, and you can pick which ones you want to focus on for the day) and every few hours you fill out one of the boxes with an assessment of how you've fared in the last day. So for instance my "Protect Life" box might look something like this:

( + ) I didn't kill the spider that just crawled across my arm.

( - ) I looked at my phone while I was driving here.

(To do) Don't look at my phone on the drive home.

For each box, you create a way you took action to protect life, a way that you fell short in protecting life, and an immediate plan to be more mindful in an effort to Protect Life. Oh, and for the record, a spider really did crawl across my arm during the class, right about the time we were talking about protecting life. But it was little and harmless, so it wasn't a stretch for me to let it live. Protect Life.

It's simple, but it's pretty cool. It's all about catching yourself when you're holding onto jealousy or idling in meaningless or hurtful interactions. In doing so, they encourage you to come up with a mantra to say as you release the guilt of falling short on meeting the principle. Because while regret is a part of Buddhism, guilt is not. I liked the distinction.

The Irish David showed us some of his Books he's kept over the last ten years or so. That was inspiring. He started out with a leather bound journal, then he gradually worked his way down to a little memo pad he could keep in his back pocket. Now he divide Post-Its into six blocks each day, and he stores them in a plastic sandwich bag. It's beautiful.

The three hours flew by -- the class was only scheduled for an hour and half, but I guess we got carried away -- and I left feeling more fulfilled than I've been after any amount of time I've spent with Don Draper. The whole thing reminded me of college, at least those college classes where we sat on the floor and wrapped ourselves in yoga blankets while contemplating the mysteries of the universe. Those existed, right?

I don't think I'm quite ready to keep "The Book," but I'm tucking it away in my toolkit for when the timing feels right.