There’s something that happens when you have been meditating for a while. It’s probably mentioned in the majority of books on the subject, but doesn’t really make sense until it happens to you. That’s because most books about meditation only deal with the beginning stages, as these are the hardest.
What happens is the state of mental clarity that comes, once you have become proficient with the practice of letting go of thoughts. Some call it Illumination, Spaciousness, even possibly Enlightenment. It is a wonderful space, a place of light untouched by the senses, a place of perfect absorption and perfect freedom.
It’s actually fairly difficult to describe, which is why meditation teachers can only use similes. So, here’s my simile after several years of daily meditation practice, trying to describe what it feels like in my own experience:
It’s like someone who has been born and grown up in a muddy swamp, and knows only the mud. The mud covers their body, as it does the bodies of all of those around them. The whole society of these mud dwellers depends upon making sure that each other are always covered in mud.
Now imagine what it would feel like for this mud dweller to one day manage to extract herself from the muddy swamp and discover that there is a clear spring flowing right next to the swamp. As she pulls her last leg free from the swamp, the spring flows over her and immediately washes all of the mud from her body. For the first time in her life, she feels the wind on her body, feels her skin unrestricted by mud. Can you imagine her bliss?
This poor illustration is how I have come to understand my own thought-life. The thought chatter which constantly goes around my head is like clinging mud. Wherever I go, more mud is thrown at me – background music, advertising, rumours and worries from friends and family, the ceaseless media and news-stream weighing on my mind, and so on. The whole of culture is designed to keep me covered in mud, and never discovering the purity of being free from thought-chatter.
It’s taken years of meditation practice for me to find that sacred space which exists between thoughts. When I started daily meditation, this wasn’t even the goal I wanted to obtain. Indeed, if you seek this goal too hard you will find that it constantly eludes you.
Something has changed in the last few months, it’s that I am able to let go of thoughts and rest in that space of emptiness as a natural thing. I find that I do it randomly during the day too, it’s not just for my meditation time. Just yesterday, I was looking at a beautiful cloud drifting by, and suddenly I was in that space of no-thought, just being in the moment. I guess that this is what Mindfulness is all about (not that I really “practice” mindfulness, it’s just a by-product of meditation).
Having escaped from the mud of my thought-life, it becomes so noticable how quickly the mud builds up again in daily life. I find that shopping, or taking the kids out, or any of the normal duties of life inevitably mean that my thought-chatter builds up again, and I am worried about things. So the key, I think, is not to seek to escape the world, but rather to take a “mental shower” as often as possible, as soon as possible, once I notice the mud building up again. That’s just the mud of Thoughts, there is also the mud of emotions, of suffering, of jealousy and greed, all the things which weigh us down in life and cause stress and dis-ease.
That empty place of freedom from thoughts is so blissful, so indescribably beautiful, that I want to spend as much of the rest of my life as possible in it. But I also know it’s not just for my own good feeling that I want it. No, there are a lot of people dwelling in the mud, burdened by all the worries and stresses of life, thinking that that is all there is. They are completely unaware of the spring of fresh water which is available to them – in fact, is actually within them! So having discovered this, I want to help others to discover it too.
Jesus also talked about this, I think, when he said “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!… Rivers of living water will flow from within…” (Jn 7:38). Other traditions also mention it, and call it by various names such as Satori, Enlightenment, Jhana, Bliss, and so on. So much theology and sophistry has built up over these terms, and so much misunderstanding too. I guess that’s usual, as mud-covered people could only glimpse dimly, and barely imagine, the state of being purified by clear water and washed free from the mud which covers them.
The spring is within you – you have only to find it.
Peace and blessings.