Blend: Stillness

I have continued to reflect upon and work with the difficulties of dealing with pain and aversion. I have noticed for a long time that when I feel good, I will completely forget about when I felt bad, and that correspondingly, when I feel terrible, I will often lose all track of any notion of or possibility of feeling good. As my practice is developing, I am more aware of the opposite feeling, but I often experience this awareness as unpleasant. Recently, I wound up trying something different.

Earlier in the day I had felt very good, and then later started to feel miserable. Then I sat down to meditate. Somehow, in my mind’s eye, I had an image of myself sitting on the chair opposite, which was where I had been sitting the last time I had felt so good. I imagined the “me” that had felt good merging with the “me” that wasn’t feeling so good. At the moment of this imaginary merging there was a sharp but prolonged, involuntary intake of breath, with a vocal squeak at the end of it, and then there was just this profound stillness—no bliss, no misery, no thinking either, just stillness.

Throughout this I had maintained some attention on the body, which was where the stillness was experienced, but this ‘sensation’ (if that’s what is was), which is difficult to describe, was particularly concentrated in the areas where there had been discomfort or pain just moments before this. This stillness persisted until the end of the meditation, and for some time afterwards as well.


On another occasion, I was sitting at my desk at work thinking about how much I disliked the room and everything in it. Then I closed my eyes and imagined what setting I would prefer, and visualized a beautiful country scene, with a view of the fall colours in the leaves of the trees. This made me feel really blissful. Then I opened my eyes and it felt as if I was in two places at once: the place where I wanted to be and the office. And then I was at peace. This tranquility and well being persisted too, and for an even longer time.