At this retreat, after about three or four days of [a meditation retreat], things started to shift. I remember sitting in the meditation hall and suddenly being able to focus. All the effort to locate the breath and stay steady with it no longer seemed necessary. It was just there. Although I was remarkably devoid of my usual litany of thoughts, I was wide awake and clearheaded. My eyes were closed in the darkened hall, but light started to pout into my consciousness. Literally, I was seeing light while resting the bulk of my attention in the breath. The light lifted me in some way and I had that feeling I sometimes get, when very moved, of the hair of my body standing on end. A strong feeling of love came next--not love for anyone or anything in particular--just a strong sense of loving. This all lasted for a while, I could get up and walk around and then, when I sat back down, it would be there again. It was as if the curtains in my mind had parted and something more fundamental was shining through. It was tremendously reassuring. Many of my doubts about myself--as inadequate, unworthy, or insufficient--seemed, as a result, to be superfluous. I knew, from the inside, that they were stories I had been repeating to myself, but not necessarily the truth. The love pouring out of me seemed infinitely more real.
While this experience lasted for hours, it did not, of course, last forever. It was one of the more dramatic things to ever happen to me while meditating and, in fact, I subsequently spent a fair amount of time trying to get it back. But its impact is as strong today as it was when it first happened.
-- Mark Epstein, Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself, p. 172-73.
While this experience lasted for hours, it did not, of course, last forever. It was one of the more dramatic things to ever happen to me while meditating and, in fact, I subsequently spent a fair amount of time trying to get it back. But its impact is as strong today as it was when it first happened.
-- Mark Epstein, Advice Not Given: A Guide to Getting Over Yourself, p. 172-73.
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