A New Experience in Meditation

Last week at the temple during meditation I had a new experience. Instead of noticing the entirety of my body’s surface area at any given instance (which I’m proud to say has become a normal daily occurrence for me), I transitioned briefly into a new state where (for lack of better words) I felt as if I weren’t separate from space, like I was uniform with everything else all the way through my body rather than just on the surface. Visually, I remember the experience as if all of physical space was an infinitely small three-dimensional grid system where outside of my body space uniformly aligned with the space inside of my body in such a way that I existed equally between and within the smallest building blocks of three-dimensional space. I understand how somebody that hasn’t meditated regularly for years might read this and wonder what sort of not-sober I was.

In the pursuit of appreciating moments with greater density (curious if that is esoteric phrasing), while in Europe the last two weeks I often stood still to first notice the entirety of the surface area of my body, then notice all that I can hear, and then notice what I’m seeing. I often have to momentarily focus on each of these things multiple times individually before noticing them all in focus at the same time (a sensation that I can seldom hold for longer than a moment). In that moment or so of aligning all three of these prominent senses, I get an ephemeral sense of belonging, like I’ve fit into a three-dimensional me-shaped pocket where reality (in the form of overwhelming sensory information) flows through me like water flowing through plumbing. Curious.