One of the things we are promised as meditators is an ever-expanding experience of bliss in our life. But bliss is perhaps different than we have thought it to be. Bliss is not to be confused with the idea of 'blissed out.' This is not an experience of being out of touch with life. In fact, it could be seen as the opposite of that. Bliss in meditators often is described as 'a supreme inner contentedness,' the feeling that all things are in their proper place, that we are in our proper place, that there is nothing we need do other than to relax and enjoy.
Having a life of bliss does not mean freedom from the experience of pain and sorrow. Absolutely when people pass from our lives, via death or divorce or moving to Australia, we will have an experience of loss. We will feel the sadness brought on by knowing we will no longer be able to locate this loved one physically. In fact, a recent study indicates that meditators feel things even more poignantly than do non-meditators. More deeply, more sharply.
The study, as I've heard it described, involved testing the response of subjects to a very loud klaxon horn, blown at non-regular intervals, over the space of 15-20 minutes as the individuals were engaged in the mundane task of filling out forms before the actual testing began. In other words, the subjects were being tested during the interval of time they thought they were preparing to be tested. They'd already been hooked up to EEG and EKG machines, then told 'oh, by the way, we forgot this part, so please just have a seat here in this room, fill out these forms, and we'll be back to get you.' Shortly afterward, the klaxon blowing began.
When the horn was blown the first time, the meditators consistently had a much higher reaction to this unexpected and startlingly loud noise than did the non-meditators. There was a very high spike in their physiological readings. When the horn was blown a second time, the meditators' response was dramatically lower than the first time, whereas the non-meditators' response the second time was higher than their first, and, rather than a brief spike that then returned to a calm resting metabolism as was the case with the meditators, the metabolism of the non-meditators remained elevated after the spike. By the time of the third random klaxon blast, the meditators had almost no reaction whatsoever, while the non-meditators were now having a sustained reaction that was nearly as high as the initial spike had been in the meditators' experience, and that reaction remained high, so that they were now in a constant state that resembled anxiety, as if they were waiting for the other shoe to drop. The people conducting the study also had been wiggling a curtain along with the blowing of the klaxon horn, and now in the final minutes of the study, they wiggled the curtain only, without the sound along with it. The meditators did not react. The non-meditators, as you might expect, had a spike in their metabolic rates matching the levels they'd reached in reaction to the horn.
As meditators, we feel things deeply, profoundly, sweetly, intimately. Fully. There are no layers of stress to deaden the experience of life. There is no layer of dead skin between my self and the world. When something feels delightful and pleasant, we feel a fullness of delight and pleasure. When something hurts, it hurts clearly and cleanly, and then it's over. Sorrow is not something we are meant to carry for the rest of our lives, nor even for weeks or months. We lose someone, it hurts. It feels as if something has been pulled out of us. But because we have spent these times twice daily in meditation letting go of our stresses, and letting go of our ideas of how life is supposed to feel, there's nothing the agony of loss can get hung up on. It now can flow freely through us. It's there, it's gone. We fall apart for a moment or five or fifteen, and then we go on about our life. We don't wait around for the other shoe to drop. Because we have life to live. Because if another shoe is going to drop, it's going to drop with or without my attention on it. Bring it on. It's just another shoe. I'll deal with it when it comes. In the meantime, I have things to do. Because as meditators, there are no more shoes to drop. All the shoes are on the floor. It's time to relax and enjoy. Cry, sob, wail, moan. Blow your nose, wipe your eyes. Then be grateful. Celebrate. If it hurts this much to have lost someone, there is a connection there that's rare and beautiful. A connection worth celebrating.
Today I will assume that all that all that is happening is evolution, and I will look only for a way to accept the circumstances as they are now, whatever they may be.
For Lauren, Carpinteria, CA
