little jumping flea

I had an interesting experience once. It was during my Zen years, one night at the end of a long retreat. I sat in meditation, rather tired and sleepy if I remember correctly, waiting for it to end so that I could untangle what was left of my legs and go to sleep, when all kinds of funky things started happening to me.

There was quite of few of them (those weird things), but the one I remember best was a vision of a space which seemed like a fabric: endless and perfectly smooth, totally unified, with no scratch, no thread pulled out, no holes. It seemed to have no beginning, no end, stretching forever and ever. And on the surface of this fabric there was a little black spot. I thought it was a flea. It was jumping up and down in great agitation, trying desperately to tear a piece of the fabric out. And I knew that the flea really wanted a piece of the fabric for itself, that would belong to the flea only, no one and nothing else, that would be separate, defined.

It was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, I thought.

Later on, when I thought about that night, I realized that what I saw was my own mind and it’s relationship to reality. I realized that the black frantic flea was my mind that was trying desperately to separate itself, define itself, set boundaries and have a little closed up piece of reality just for itself, so it could call it “me” as opposite to “them”

Whenever I open to “who i am as God” or rather decide to just be me, the thing I always experience first and strongest is a sense of total stillness. It’s not a static, lazy, sleepy stillness. It is a stillness full of energy, an alert and awaken stillness. Like a warrior standing relaxed, and yet ready to strike or to parr a stroke in a fraction of a second.

Inside of this stillness there is no need for action. No need to go somewhere, do something, take care of anything, explain anything to anybody. This stillness is full of potential, full of opportunities, full of LIFE. In fact this stillness is holding space for life.

There are no boundaries in this stillness. It does not begin and does not end. It does not show up only in certain areas of life and disappears in others.

This stillness, If I was to visualize it, is like a great fabric, endless and perfectly smooth, totally unified – with no scratch, no thread pulled out, no holes. It seems to have no beginning, no end, stretching forever and ever.

This is how it feels to be myself, when I am present enough to see beyond the little walls created by the little jumping flea. This is how it feels to be God.