I remember starting a year ago. I couldn’t even find a seam between thoughts. My mind was wild, caffeine-addled, To-Do-list-saturated. I realized with some amazement that my mind had been racing non-stop for seven years.

For the first few months, it was a chore to sit. A task to be checked off. But slowly the seams between thoughts grew, and I rested in a cool, familiar silence (which harkened back, sense-memory wise, to when I was very young: 3 or 4…), even if it was only for a second or two.

And with that progress I became increasingly enthused to sit. It became something I looked forward to.

Now, a year in, I sit in thoughtless silence for about 1/3 to 1/2 my 30 minute sessions. And amidst that something interesting has developed recently. A physical resistance, an unsolicited tightening up. No specific thoughts or emotions elicit this. Just the silence. I’m starting to think that it’s as the Buddhists say: that the ego will do anything not to let go. It fears for its existence that much. And yet, I get the impression that on the other side of that tightening up, that fear (which is body-shaking; I grabbed my head suddenly with a scream once!) is total relinquishment. An utter laying down of things. Once or twice, in the middle of the fear (which interestingly is manifested in my body, not in my psyche, which remains largely detached), I sense joy on an ineffable level. Just on the other side of that fear. I get the sense I am at a threshold.

It’s hard to remain there in the face of the fear, but I’ve managed to hang in a little longer each time. Everything else is gone; nothing external (sights, sounds, thoughts, etc.) gets through. The fear is all-consuming. And then it releases; I don’t ‘break through’ per se, but my body lets go of the tension. And none of the fear persists. Strange. Just goes to show how ephemeral our feelings are.

Promising is the Ajahn Chah passage: “As you go deeper into your practice, there will be times of great inner tension followed by release to the point of weeping. If you have not experienced this at least several times, you have not yet really practiced.“