A Curious Meditation

It's one of those days when I hit the New Post button with not the first idea what to talk about. I showed up yesterday for my Sunday morning sit at the Laguna Sangha and did, indeed, sit for a full hour without once coming to the place of serenity and focus that I usually manage to find. My mind was scattered, flitting from object to object without settling on one for more than seconds at a time--unusual, because when thoughts take control, they normally tend in one particular direction and follow it for minutes on end before I realize what has happened, and bring it back to concentration on the breath. Strangely, too, in such a circumstance, the hour passed very quickly. The gong sounded before I'd had time to fret about how much longer it would be--the common experience when the mind wanders.

When I sit for a full hour, too, I usually like to structure the experience in some way. I start out with metta--wishing goodwill in ever widening circles to include all living beings--then move on, always following the breath, to one of several different body scans that I use to create a framework in which to establish intention and concentration before moving into full body breathing and, if I'm lucky, a sense of moving out beyond the confines of the body and becoming nothing more than a part of the everything that surrounds me. Yesterday, though, I didn't even manage to maintain concentration for long enough to work through the metta practice, let alone the body scan.

Altogether, a very curious sit--and a rather unsettling experience. Since my mind apparently gave up any notion of discipline or struggle, it was absolutely painless. And I yet I judge it to have fallen short as meditation. It was more like being adrift on shifting currents, with no sense of direction or resistance. I might as well have been asleep and dreaming. But no one, afterwards, complained about any snores!