My throat is easy. Cool air falls inside, fills me, then expels. My arms and neck begin to relax just from noticing the sticky points. I am sitting with no other purpose than to see what’s here, to feel the shape of my body as it meets the shape of a living moment. I feel my clothes, my feet. I feel a flake of dust in my nose.
I remember sitting at a retreat years ago in a tired building, dust on the curtains and the sills, dust floating in the light from the window, beautiful but musty. My nose itched, and I was afraid I would sneeze, violating the silence, a bother to everyone around me. How embarrassing for the newbie.
I realize my mind has wandered. I bring it back. Watching my breath, I’m struck by how physical the air feels as it slides along the physical passage of my throat and lungs, a moving volume with substance, brushing against my own substance, my body more real, overly real, because I am aware of the movement. In truth, this is just my body as it always is, but it is a physicalness I usually ignore. To pause and soak it in by concentrating my attention is hypnotizing.
How would I describe this hyper-physicalness? Who would be interested? There is a friend I know who would enjoy the conversation. We would talk about the newness, the freshness, the way our bodies become more alive when we take the time to feel them. We share words, descriptions, an eager back and forth, a conversation about the body that makes me forget my body.
I realize I have wandered again. I come back from the conversation that never happened, all imagined cinema. It appeared real while I was in it, but when I stepped out, it collapsed. The contrast is startling, between the movie in my mind, flat and weightless, and the vibrant fullness of my body when awareness is present. I return to the warmth and weight of my body. I feel my lungs mingling particles of me with the cool air, creating each new breath, alive for a moment and then passed on. The words and descriptions in the movie are still here, floating like dust in the sunlight, but they no longer compel my attention. Even the words I am writing now seem removed, hanging in the background. Awareness has absorbed me – grounded, palpable, vivid. A feeling of pure presence fills my body and the space around my body, expanding outward, brimming, boundary-less. My body is still. My mind is still. The volume, still.
I feel an icy pinprick. My throat catches, my blood runs quick. Something is afraid, a piece deep within me shouts a warning to pull back before I am lost in this uncontained spaciousness. I am confused. The expanding volume is peaceful, blissful, but unfamiliar, and the fearful piece has been trained to treat anything foreign as a danger. I stay. I watch the confusion, I feel the fear, I let it grow. I expect a firebomb, but it pops like a firecracker and is gone.
The volume settles back. I invite the fearful piece inside, she needs attention. I sit with everything – the peace, the weight, the fear, the physical intimacy, the breath that seems to occupy the fullness of it all. Time moves unsped, as if through water. I feel no need to strive, to bring about something different. I am suspended in direct experience, unfiltered, conscious.
It is a morning, like other mornings. When I get up to go about my day, this heightened perception will linger. Tomorrow will be different. I will sit again with no other purpose than to see what’s here.
Photo by Rona Lao on Unsplash