| | Hi folks,
I had a great, new experience back in February, but have been thinking about it since then. Still not too eager to categorize it, but I thought I'd share it, to see if it resonated with anyone else's experience...
I set my timer for 40 minutes of mindfulness of breathing. I achieved a nice, deep calm, fell into access concentration, hovered near first jhana, but only got the slightest taste of it this time. Then the timer went off. I opened my eyes, and the room was in a comfortable twilight. My breathing was slow and even, and something told me to stay with my breath, with eyes open, even though I always meditate with eyes closed.
My visual focus drifted in and out, there was a slight mental shift, and the perceived locus of my awareness seemed to drift a bit forward into the room, and expand slowly to merge with the surroundings. This shift was very gradual, and there was an initial fear resulting from the sense that I was letting go of something important, but that was fairly easily tempered, allowing me to let the shift unfold as it did, if with a bit of wobbling.
And then at its peak, for a fraction of a second, there wasn’t a “me”. The otherwise omnipresent sense of "I" basically ceased, while a sort of non-local, passive awareness took its place. The floorboards, walls, and nearby items in the room became me; I became them. We were one, big, quiet, calm, empty field...with no distinctions and nobody "in charge" (is that ego?). There was still an awareness of the room, but it was sort of an inherent, distributed property of the space itself.
And then a slow drift back to normal’ish awareness began.
On the way "out", my first thought was, "Well then where does the impetus come from for anything to happen??"...and I was reminded of some accomplished yogi’s statements about being pleasantly surprised to see what happens next in their moment-to-moment existence, as if the will driving their own body were an unpredictable externality. My next thought was, “What would it be like to live from this vantage point all the time?”
In the aftermath, there were no fireworks, no fruition/gap, and no grand sense of accomplishment. If anything, the experience was simply novel and unique among my experiences to date, but it did leave me feeling somewhat jazzed and very eager to sit again. Also very eager to tell someone, my wife being the first (and she was very polite in humoring me, as I don't typically discuss my practice with her), followed by some dharma friends. I also noticed in the weeks that followed, that when I sit now, the time passes extremely quickly, and is almost effortless. Sitting for 60-90 minutes is easy, with little or no concerns for getting off the mat. Interesting side effect perhaps: you know how songs get stuck in your head for a day or two? They sometimes get stuck in my head for weeks now. Somewhat annoying, but it could be worse.
And there you have it. Comments on the above would be appreciated, if any of it sounds familiar.
Regards P |