I had been going through a very ‘dry’ patch in meditation. I had done the practice regularly but it felt like just going through the motions. There was no liveliness or energy in it. It didn’t reach into calm or contentment.
At this time I went on a one-week meditation retreat held at a retreat centre with nice rooms, a lovely garden, very tranquil. There were about a dozen people and I seemed to be the only one having difficulty. For several days I struggled and got more and more depressed. I couldn’t really do the practice – I was going through the stages, but wasn’t engaged, all I was aware of was not being able to do it and a darker and darker quality every time I tried. On the third day I felt I had lost any connection with the light quality of mind I had experienced before in meditation. I was despairing but at the same time had a sense that I had to go on and eventually something would happen.
The three days I spent in this process were endless. Each time I sat to meditate time stretched out. Periods of walking meditation for 15 or 20 minutes felt like hours. I felt I’d been in this place for an eternity.
But I kept on going with the practice, and in one session found myself thinking, ‘so that’s as dark as it goes’. Everything changed. The next day I really saw and enjoyed the flowers in the garden. My mind became calm and light. And at lunch, they served an astounding pudding: a single round, bright yellow – orange pudding. When it was put in front of me I just gazed at it in amazement. It was exactly the colour and size of the mental image that sometimes appeared in my meditation. Even the pudding was telling me to lighten up! I bristled all over with laughter and joy. That evening I found a children’s playground nearby with a tall swing, and swung happily watching the world rising and falling.
I had kept a notebook and a few weeks later found I was incapable of recalling that quality of despair and darkness. This made me really, deeply question whom I thought I was. The ‘me’ that had recorded the darkness wasn’t there to recall it, so I couldn’t. All I actually retain is a flavour of it, just as I only retain a flavour of the light and peace. I came to interpret this to mean I may be seeking something beyond dark or light.