Well, never the last word, of course. But for now... I just wanted to add a few words to the two previous entries on spaciousness, prompted by my review of Tsoknyi Rinpoche's Open Heart, Open Mind. I had been writing about my sense of outer space and my sense of inner space and how I make the effort to open myself to both during meditation. The final step in this exercise is to allow the contours of the body to melt away so that the two can merge. It takes work, but it can be done in meditation. First, take the time needed to allow the mind to expand into outer space; and then, with the breath, to explore the inner space of the body. Then simply allow the border between the two to dissipate...
It's a delicious feeling. All the weight of the body seems to evanesce and even the slightest effort involved in breathing disappears with the sense that the body is no longer breathing, but being breathed. The feeling is one of leaving the physical body-space and slipping effortlessly into mind-space, from which all attachment, thought, anxiety and negative emotion are simply absent, and the clarity is intense. It's a feeling of being utterly--even timelessly--present, inseparable from the All.
I think you'll agree that I don't often wax spiritual in The Buddha Diaries. And I'd want to stress that, for me, when I'm fortunate--or focused--enough to arrive at that moment I describe, it's not about the transcendence I associate with spiritual aspiration, but more about actual experience in the here and now. When I write of the All, I don't intend to evoke what some call God, but rather the physical universe. And of course I realize that to some--perhaps many--this will make no sense at all. But I thought it worth trying to put into words...
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