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I encountered this and wrote about it in other meditation thread. Here I've inlined it below. Meditation is a blade with no hilt. I _accidentally_ fell into

I encountered this and wrote about it in other meditation thread. Here I've inlined it below. Meditation is a blade with no hilt. I _accidentally_ fell into a vipassana state of mind after the first time trying a particular religious chant, seriously, from out of the pains of boredom as a 20 year old. At the time I lived nearby mountains, and after 'coming to', I saw them through the window. I cannot describe to you the overwhelming feeling of beauty and awe that crashed over me. It was as though this was the very first time I had ever seen mountains. I think the best description I can manage comes from 'Both Sides Now' by Joni Mitchell. 'I've looked at clouds from both sides now From up and down, and still somehow It's cloud illusions I recall I really don't know clouds at all' The experience was so disorienting. As if I was seeing the mountains for what they were directly through my senses and not mediated by my knowledge of what mountains were like, linguistically. It changed my entire life -- weeks later later I lost my job and fell into a 5 year extreme depression / anxiety spell in the attempt to reconcile my adolescent religious upbringing with the continued insight from that experience. Absolutely worthwhile, in hindsight, but it cost me near everything for it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24186942 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24186942

tucosan 6y ago
I attended a Zen retreat in my late twenties. I had very little experience with meditation practice back then. We meditated four times for 90 minutes each day for about 10 days. It was a beautiful experience. The sangha was great. The food was simple but very tasty. When we didn't meditate, we worked in the garden and prepared food together. On the 6th or 7th day of the retreat I took a walk alone through the countryside. The meditation practice had made me very receptive to all sensual inputs. Sound, taste, smell and colour felt like someone dialed them to their maximum values. I walked along a small trail and encountered a snail making it's slow journey across my path. I stopped, and just watched her as she worked her way towards the other side. That very moment I was hit by a realisation that I still - years later - can't really put into the appropriate words. It felt like a veil suddenly lifted. The world exposed itself in all its complexity and aesthetic beauty. The integration and the interdependence of all things was suddenly visible to me without any mental filters. The abstractions were gone. The semiotics were gone. The dualism was gone. It felt like I suddenly and violently woke up from a deep slumber. There was this strong realisation that I was deeply embedded in the universe. The leaves blowing in the wind, the snail, the pebbles on the trail, the grass, the sky, the universe and myself in it were just one thing. I felt like I was suspended in the very "beingness" of it all. Back then, I had no means to integrate this existential experience into everyday life. The giant question marks it raised stuck with me over the years. Intense meditation practise can create very powerful shifts in perception of reality. In hindsight, I believe that I was way too inexperienced to wield the powerful tool that is meditation. I stopped meditation practice for a few years after this experience. I felt that I ventured too far offshore. I suddenly realised how deep and unexplored the ocean that is perception are, once we swim out of the shallow water. Back then, I decided to quickly swim back to shore and stopped my meditation practice for a few years. I've rekindled my meditation praxis with the same sangha a few years later. But I stayed vigilant to not venture too fast too far out into unexplored territories of perception.
- jessermeyer 6y ago
  Namaste.

tucosan 6y ago

I attended a Zen retreat in my late twenties. I had very little experience with meditation practice back then. We meditated four times for 90 minutes each day for about 10 days. It was a beautiful experience. The sangha was great. The food was simple but very tasty. When we didn't meditate, we worked in the garden and prepared food together. On the 6th or 7th day of the retreat I took a walk alone through the countryside. The meditation practice had made me very receptive to all sensual inputs. Sound, taste, smell and colour felt like someone dialed them to their maximum values. I walked along a small trail and encountered a snail making it's slow journey across my path. I stopped, and just watched her as she worked her way towards the other side. That very moment I was hit by a realisation that I still - years later - can't really put into the appropriate words. It felt like a veil suddenly lifted. The world exposed itself in all its complexity and aesthetic beauty. The integration and the interdependence of all things was suddenly visible to me without any mental filters. The abstractions were gone. The semiotics were gone. The dualism was gone. It felt like I suddenly and violently woke up from a deep slumber. There was this strong realisation that I was deeply embedded in the universe. The leaves blowing in the wind, the snail, the pebbles on the trail, the grass, the sky, the universe and myself in it were just one thing. I felt like I was suspended in the very "beingness" of it all. Back then, I had no means to integrate this existential experience into everyday life. The giant question marks it raised stuck with me over the years. Intense meditation practise can create very powerful shifts in perception of reality. In hindsight, I believe that I was way too inexperienced to wield the powerful tool that is meditation. I stopped meditation practice for a few years after this experience. I felt that I ventured too far offshore. I suddenly realised how deep and unexplored the ocean that is perception are, once we swim out of the shallow water. Back then, I decided to quickly swim back to shore and stopped my meditation practice for a few years. I've rekindled my meditation praxis with the same sangha a few years later. But I stayed vigilant to not venture too fast too far out into unexplored territories of perception.

jessermeyer 6y ago
Namaste.