Among the most solid, quiet, satisfying but somehow expected sittings I have had, this morning. One sign of its virtue was my immediate sense that most of the experience can’t be put into words. I can describe physical dimensions of the sitting: regular, deep, untroubled breathing, solidity of posture in my seat, the resting hands forming their bowl without tension in the meeting thumbs—but these are not the truth of the experience. The closest I can come to articulating the sense I had of great freedom was to use the language of non-attachment again. Thoughts arose rarely—though I could say that my everyday mind tried its best to derail my meditation’s ease—and when they did arise, even thoughts of shame or grief or frustration, they simply dissipated again quickly. They had no magnetic power today; the experiences and desires that drove them meant so little. I listened carefully to the Tibetan bowls, but soon after I listened to them carelessly, indifferently, yet their music suffused my awareness throughout. With eyes closed I gazed into something like empty space, but there was no sense of its being light, or dark, or different from any other gazing. Nothing held me, and I held nothing; a sense of great freedom arose, but I didn’t cherish it. At different moments I sought words for what was happening, but that part of the mind that wants words for truths soon lapsed into indifference.*
Only one circumstance of today’s meditation seems potentially relevant: that for various reasons this was my first zazen in about five days. When some of my readings tell me to sit several times a day, or for hours at a time, it is puzzling to think that spacing out my meditations might lead to greater insight. Yet I also know that if I now begin a program of infrequent meditation in hopes of more satisfying meditation, I would be killing the truth I just uncovered.
* Coincidentally, from today’s later reading of the Wen-Tzu: “The vital essence of mind can be influenced spiritually but cannot be guided by talk.” Chap. 25. The Taoist Classics: The Collected Translations of Thomas Cleary, vol. 1, p. 178.
19 January, 2024.