Smell of Rose

What are the most memorable moments of your life? When you felt peace, when you felt that in that very moment the world was exactly as it should be, when you felt that you are at the right place at the right moment, when you almost felt that you understand existence, when everything was just all right. If you seriously count them there are not so many, are there..? You have lived twenty, forty, sixty years, and there have been only a handful really

 penetrating moments, have been not..? Perhaps, when you watched 

a colorful sunset, and the beautiful play of lights on deep orange clouds left you speechless; Or perhaps, on a mild

 spring 

afternoon, when you smelled a rose, sitting on a soft garden grass. The gentle wind touched your skin, and the sweetness of the rose was unspeakable; Or perhaps, when you watched your lover sleeping in your arms. You sensed her/his unmistakable smell, that meant you the pure love that moment. The warmness of her/his body, the soft rising and falling of her/his chest, and the small movements of her/his eyelids told you: the world is perfect, after all; Or perhaps, when you sat that afternoon at the dining table, and around the table you saw your children, maybe the grandchildren as well. You looked that special spark in their eyes that only children have. Listened the warm tinkling of their joyful laugh. Then you knew that life worth it. You knew it for sure.

Was this experience really bound to that special subject -t

he sunset, the rose, the lover, the child- you contemplated? Or your amazement of sunset, your pure love to your lover and to your child opened up some deep blockage, and let you experience the life in its eternity and entirety; and beyond even that, maybe for a split second the pure existence itself. Think about it 

for some time. In that very moment were you aware that you are watching the sunset; In that culminating point when you held your lover and felt the perfect happiness and tranquility, were 

you really conscious about the pleasure of owning and being owned? I am not asking one second before, or after - I am asking exactly that fleeting moment, when you were content. All your worries and hopes, your image of self, were all these present in that very moment, or there was no subject and no object, s/he and me, before and after, only the experience that melt all separation into the sensation of very existence here and now. When the sunset were you and you were the sunset; when that very spark in the eyes of your beloved one was you and you were the spark. Then you were utterly tranquil and content as your self opened up and united with that incontrollable flow of Universe, without a second thought.

That very moment is the beginning of meditation. Here in the dhamma-hall we all are practicing that very moment. We force our mind to detach from its created realm, by focusing our awareness to the subject of meditation. This links us back to what is 

real and true. In everyday life it happens when something really spectacular happens, because we are so deeply buried into our age-old habitual patterns, that we need so

mething extraordinary to grab our consciousness out from the cage of that world it has been 

creating to itself. Here

 in dhamma-hall the breathing makes it. In and out - no thought - in and out - no worries - in and out - just peace - in and out - and clarity.

There is this spark in every one of us. But we bury it, and, after a decade or two, it becomes barely perceivable. We bury it under unbearable weights of heavy

 thoughts, fears, unimportant dreams. We become so attached to them, that

 we forget the spark that actually lights everything, yet, lays out of anything. We start to live on the very surface of our minds, where all the trash is accumulated. We jump from one fear to the next, then to the next hope. Endlessly. All in our lives after a certain age we are in keep running. From one to another, another, then another again. Then we become frightened; we do not see the spark anymore, we do not find meaning anymore. But we do not stop, instead we double the force with which we gather more this and more that. Then we die.

Here we do not want that endless circle. Therefore we unite with the Universe trough our breathing. Just as you united trough the sunset, through the rose, through your lover, through your child, through what and whoever that opened a window for that moment to the truth. When the mind calms down, when there is no distraction anymore, when there is no hope and fear, when the subject and the object melt into one, then even the breathing, the final aid fades away. What is left behind, where there is no thought, no emotion, where no object and no 'I' and no sensation is present? That is for you to find out - That is who you really are...

Meditation Retreat

I attended the 10 days Vipassana meditation retreat in Igatpuri, India, and these were probably the most difficult and, yet, fruitful days of my life. The morning bell woke us up at 4am and we were meditating until 9pm, with one longer (2h) and two shorter brakes. There was a total restriction of anything unrelated to practical meditation (such as talking, reading, writing, etc.). There were even 5 Buddhist monks studying with us and, to be honest, after the first day’s ten hours sitting meditation I was seriously thinking whether I was up to this, but eventually –thank God- I decided to stay at the end.

There were more than three days preparing for the main meditation; during this period we concentrated to the sensations caused by the breathing in and around the nose area, step by step each day decreasing the focus of the concentration until it became to a small spot. During this time my mind stilled down considerably and became very sensitive. In the afternoon of the fourth day the main meditation started, where we supposed to extend our awareness from that tiny spot to the whole body maintaining the clarity of bodily sensations. In the second hour in meditation something started; until that I felt vibrating sensations separately, but then these separated sensations united and my whole body became mere vibration, fluctuation. Its solidity totally dissolved into this flow; and the pain caused by the long sitting too become mere vibration and ceased to be pain anymore.

Here we started to study the body/matter-mind interaction; how certain sensations draws the attention of the mind which reacts by aversion or attachment, then how the mind hangs on this particular sensation multiplying its strength and resulting irresistible aversion (e.g. pain), or craving – then observing how whole these processes are endlessly flowing ahead. I believe now, that what I see sometimes, that white, foggy, vibrating light is actually this vibration. I saw it this time as well, and the sensation and the sight were vibrating exactly for the same rhythm.

We were told not to react to any sensation, just observe it with as much clarity as possible; not to wish to have the sensation of dissolution/vibration, not to feel aversion if only gross sensation what we observe, because otherwise we just repeat our old patterns, instead of eradicating them.

On the last three days I was meditating in cell and I think this isolated environment helped; until I was continuously sweeping my consciousness over the body to sense the flow. But then I tried to open my concentration and instead of focusing to certain part just observe the vibration all over. And then I ‘sank’ further; I left behind the thoughts (which were still arising sometimes, but ‘above’ me); then that usually unconscious level where the mind reacts to those subtle sensations; then as I opened to the vibrations my I ceased to be a solid entity, too, and even the ever changing vibration become somehow distant and at the bottom of everything, as well as in between the two extremes of a vibration (whether in the body or mind, same) there was something like a totally tranquil ocean, with unmoving presence. What I had experienced before, but in a sense from ‘above’, watching it from a distance now became the only thing. It permeated everywhere, still I could not say that it was something, and maybe the tranquility the only attribute I really could attach to it. On all the last three days it happened and took for several tens of minutes. I felt in a sense blessed, though did not feel crying anymore.

(PS. photos are illustrations from web. I had decided not to take camera with me, as I had intended to go to an inward journey...)