The First Taste

I'd been practising for about 4 years or so. It's actually a little hard to remember.

I know this much: it was shortly after I'd attended a Rohatsu retreat at our centre. Rohatsu is a special day in the Buddhist tradition as it's the day that Shakyamuni, the historical Buddha, supposedly had his big enlightenment experience. It's believed to be December 8th. On this day, Buddhists from all over the world meditate through the night of the 7th to 8th to commemorate his doing the same and his big awakening upon seeing the morning star. I guess I must have been 26 at the time.

During the private one on one interviews with my teacher that were taking place during the Rohatsu, I answered the spiritual question I had been working on. It didn't seem like a big deal and I certainly didn't feel like I'd gotten anything or that anything had happened, but my teacher was very happy, happier than I'd ever seen him. I felt like he was making a mistake to be so happy for me but I didn't say anything.

So this was some time after that. Because he'd been so happy it was a bit like a weight had shifted. What I had asserted was remarkably simple and for him to apparently confirm it as true felt very good, and I relaxed in my practice a bit, confident that I was going the right way.

I was sat in Zazen in my bedroom in North London. It was "going well". I wasn't getting distracted by thoughts very much.

At a certain point, in an attempt to go deeper into my new question, I thought to myself "It's already here. There's nowhere to go. It's already with you". I guess I must have thought that way for a couple of minutes.

Shortly after that, there was a blank, like I'd fallen asleep, but it seemed that I hadn't. I woke up after an uncertain amount of time (probably no more than a few minutes) and I was perceiving myself as the centre of the universe.

Well it wasn't quite that, it was more that the existence of everything I was perceiving (and somehow it seemed, everything that could be perceived, no matter where I might have been geographically) was just seen to be originating from me. It was surprising though. I blinked and, I think, opened my eyes, and then I took about a minute to register everything. I'd heard that when this kind of thing happens, the recipient often experiences instantaneous insights about the nature of reality which fundamentally change their outlook on life. Well this didn't happen. I remember being a bit disappointed and thought that maybe if I'd somehow been able to stay in that place longer then things would have been different.

So that was that, and I carried on with my day. Nothing had changed.

But something had changed. From that point on, I think, there was a deep and slow building shift. It's like if you turn a lava lamp upsidedown - everything stays where it is initially, but the forces are different. There has been all kinds of stuff since then, and I write this for my own records because I don't know when this new way of seeing, which is now more familiar to me, ever had a chance to begin if not here.

When I got into Zen, I really wanted one of those massive enlightenment experiences that shatter everything and change you overnight forever. The universe saw fit to deny me that. So far it's been little tiny bursts of light that, without me noticing, have now begun to illuminate things a bit.

I say "tiny" yet they rocked my whole world, but that still constitutes "tiny". These experiences, all of them, it's a bit "so what", you know? It's just an experience. So what? What does this experience matter when I'm dying? I can't remember them very well.

Still, things are confusing. Confusing in a different way though.

Breathe out, and there is the whole universe. Where else?

All these things, I have to question their existence, because where are they?

Onwards, onwards