| | Author: pookee Forum: Dharma Overground Discussion Forum
One evening three years ago on retreat I lay meditating. It was a strong meditation. I had the sense of being in a vast empty space, larger than anything really imaginable. Perhaps the volume of the solar system is about right, or gets the point across. It was vast and utterly dark and utterly empty. And almost totally silent. My thoughts were there, but tiny and dim, the sound of two grains of sand touching. I recall I recall having the odd feeling that, despite this feeling of vastness, that two small swaths of skin (one above the right eyebrow and one above the left knee, about the size of a finger tip) existed. The sand felt lost, or that I was losing myself. Whatever part of me was aware of the vastness had no emotion, but the tiny sands started to become afraid. It is difficult to fully describe this, since even mental verbalization was reduced. It was empty, nothingness. But I didn't associate anything bad with it. Or anything good. The sand, though, was frightened. So, by some instinct I didn't know I had, the sand became me again and I opened my eyes. I felt relief.
(Eventually I went to sleep, and had the most lucid, terrifying dream of my life. In the dream I slept, and then woke. I woke to find myself both blind and deaf. I truly believed that it was real. For a few minutes I tried to calm myself, telling myself that the correct response was, as always, to remain equanimous. And that lasted all of 5 seconds. Before long, in the dream, I was screaming, "Help me! I cannot see, I can't hear!" I stumbled out of bed, fumbled for the door (although at this point I was terrified and not making much sense of what I was touching), and went into the hall. I found a fleshy bit that I thought was someone's neck, and in my terror I began to squeeze. I woke with my own thigh squeezed between in my hands. To this day I feel that terror.)
Something significant happened that night, but I'm not sure what. |