Inky Black Darkness

Cease from practice based on intellectual understanding, pursuing words, and following after speech, and learn the backward step that turns your light inward to illuminate your self. Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest. - Dogen in the Zen Calendar (October 18, 2002)

Day 51. Wow. This quote, almost eight years ago, referenced two important concepts I've previously blogged about: body and mind falling away, and coming to know my original face. So far, my body and mind are still present and intact, and I've not yet perceived the appearance of my original face. Guess I'll sit some more. That's okay -- I was going to sit anyway.

Last night I felt crooked, tilted, and asymmetrical on my cushion. I considered developing a profound and intellectual metaphor with which to elaborate, but realized that the true phenomena was simply my scoliosis tugging me off center because I have neglected my stretching regime. That's the whole picture. It is what it is.

Symmetry (or lack thereof) aside, I had an interesting experience while meditating. After a series of ham's and sah's, I concentrated on the sensation of dropping down into my "lizard brain" - the locale of my amygdala - to escape the Monkeys. They usually hover above, concentrated in my thinking brain. When I dwell in the territory of my ancient brain, it seems to up the chance that my mind can fall away. Last night my consciousness shot right past the amygdala ledge, and floated out into inky black darkness. Suspended. Detached. No thought no feeling no perception. A glimmer of transcendence.

A few years ago I was teaching at the Air Force Base in Treebeek, Netherlands. My son had accompanied me on the trip, and we had embarked upon one of my requisite forays into the unknown. We found ourselves on a tour of the "Velvet Caves" in the area. The caves were originally mined for limestone, but in the 1940's they were utilized as hideouts during the war. Their history was resplendent with human drama, including stunning murals drawn with chunks of coal on the cave walls. At one point during our walk through the caves, the tour guide announced that she would be extinguishing her lantern so that we could sample the unique darkness. Abruptly, we were plunged into a blackness unlike anything I had ever experienced. The dark was a fluid, tangible, living thing. Inky, thick, heavy, and moist. All orientation to space and time was lost, and in the absence of visual cues it became impossible to command simple body functions. Cognitive and physical equilibrium waned, followed by a sense of confusion, vulnerability, and helplessness. I felt more curiosity than fear. Other members of our group, however, loudly voiced their distress. The guide hastily illuminated her lantern. There was a sound of laughter mixed with anxiety and relief.

When I entered deep darkness while meditating last night, again I did not feel fear. There were a couple of moments of contemplating the dark, and recognizing my cerebral self describing it. I consciously switched the label of "inky black darkness" to "velvety darkness." The connotation felt very different. "Inky black" felt dangerous, precarious, sinister. I recalled the "Velvet Caves" and was mindful of my associations to the word "velvet" - soft, sensual, benign. The fringe of my awareness registered this analytic activity, and then let go of it. I drifted softly, safely, into the black nothingness. Untethered, unanchored, released.

As I write of the experience now, I am suffering from a reminder that "When you speak of it, you lose it." This time, however, it is a little different. A thought about what happened feels important to record. I have as yet to wrap my mind around the Buddhist concept of "Big Mind," but my infantile understanding is that it is a state that allows room for inclusion of everything; i.e. an utterly non-dualistic, expansive frame of reference for apprehending something. Last night, the very Ego that I try to dodge reframed my experience of the dark such that I could launch into it and briefly experience a sort of transcendence. When we're fearful, we tend to quit moving forward, to freeze, to cease risk-taking and become wary. My thinking brain intervened on my behalf to lessen potential fear. It seems like my ego provided a function in the service of transcendence, rather than interfering with it. Puzzling and contradictory. How can that beast of an ego I'm supposed to conquer assist me in the very quest it supposedly impedes?

This is why monks disappear into caves. As for me, I'm headed to the velvety darkness.

Gassho,
CycleBuddhaDoc