Recently while meditating I had a revelatory experience. I was in the present, watching my breath, aware that the only reality is the present, all else is thought, and savoring the moment ... meaning my feelings and sensations at the moment, when all of a sudden my Buddha mind took me to both known and unknown corners of the earth. I saw people I knew as they were at that moment, I saw places as they were at that moment, I saw people suffering at that moment, I saw the spacecraft Voyager heading beyond the solar system out into interstellar space (I had just read an article about it).
And the even stranger thing was that during the experience I never stopped being present in the moment, it’s just that the geographical place of the moment expanded to include the world and everyone in it. There was no thought involved here. I was not escaping my present moment. For the first time I perceived that if you are at one with all things, the present moment is much larger than your immediate circumstance and feelings, it is the immediate circumstance and feelings of all beings.
When we feel trapped in our present circumstance, it is our ego-mind that makes us feel trapped. It is not a reflection of reality. We know that all things are impermanent and changeable, and that we are just a drop in the ocean of all humanity and sentient beings. Our oneness with all things allows us to experience all things everywhere while we are sitting on our pillow or otherwise in a meditate state.
And so, even though this experience has not repeated itself in the days since, when I am present I am aware that the present moment goes far beyond the range of my sight and hearing. As the classic poem, In Praise of Zazen, says, “How vast is the heaven of boundless samadhi!”
And the even stranger thing was that during the experience I never stopped being present in the moment, it’s just that the geographical place of the moment expanded to include the world and everyone in it. There was no thought involved here. I was not escaping my present moment. For the first time I perceived that if you are at one with all things, the present moment is much larger than your immediate circumstance and feelings, it is the immediate circumstance and feelings of all beings.
When we feel trapped in our present circumstance, it is our ego-mind that makes us feel trapped. It is not a reflection of reality. We know that all things are impermanent and changeable, and that we are just a drop in the ocean of all humanity and sentient beings. Our oneness with all things allows us to experience all things everywhere while we are sitting on our pillow or otherwise in a meditate state.
And so, even though this experience has not repeated itself in the days since, when I am present I am aware that the present moment goes far beyond the range of my sight and hearing. As the classic poem, In Praise of Zazen, says, “How vast is the heaven of boundless samadhi!”
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