In the Funky Buddha we Trust
(the title is lyrics from an AI generated song I can't find anymore)
Yesterday I meditated for 10 minutes and the day before that too. Sat on a couple of pillows cross-legged, faced the wall with my eyes half open and focused on the breath in my abdomen.
That was the first time in 3.5 years that I've meditated. The previous time I did a single sitting session via Zoom in an online Zendo. That was actually my first formal experience with a Zen Buddhist organization.
10 years prior to that, I was living in the rural oilfield assembling pressure vessels. I had moved from the largest city in the country to a town of about 500 people. Being quite the hermit and introvert, there was little culture shock beyond people calling lunch "dinner". Being quite the hermit, I spent most of my time reading books and going down Wikipedia rabbit holes, one of them landed on Buddhism and got interested in it. Online communities weren't a thing back then and the nearest temple was a 5 hour drive away. Instead, I did self practice. At my peak I was doing 40 minutes of sitting meditation a day, and an unknown amount of meditating at work. Since my job was assembly, building the same thing over and and over again, active meditation was quite easy. As time progressed I noticed myself calmer. Mistakes or accidents went by with ease.
Around the 6 month mark of practising I had an experience at work. I suddenly entered the non-dual state, where it's no longer you looking at/sensing the world, it's just the world. For me it was an oxy-aceteylene torch system in the shop, that's all I was, just a torch, gas lines and two steel tanks, the totality of my existence. There's a Zen quote I read somewhere "let fall the mind and body" and that's exactly what happened. I had a thought in that state, it simply flowed in and out of my awareness. I also experienced "the source" in that state, which according to one Zen teacher is at the core of all major religions around the world. While the non-dual state was peaceful, the "pulses" from the source were completely and utterly peaceful. I said to myself "that took something away from nothing".
After about 20s of that, I returned to the dualism state and never returned. Shortly after that, I began getting depression and anxiety and had to focus on treatment for it and fell out of practice. I noticed after that experience that meditating didn't have the subtle serene feeling it used to and so I knew something was wrong.
Every so often in the past 15 years I'll meditate again and read some Buddhist texts. It never sticks though. I've done sitting meditation for 3 straight days this time and started listening to a podcast on Zen. Maybe this time, I'll finally get back on the horse.