The Day I Disappeared
Body and mind of themselves will drop away, and your original face will be manifest — DOGEN
Once I worked 19 hours straight to meet a deadline for a client — a classic “all-nighter” and then some. Other than occasional five-minute breaks to stretch or snack, I sat welded to my seat, pounding a computer keyboard and staring at my monitor.
My thoughts raced, manufacturing a litany of judgments and making it hard to get anything done: How do I get myself into these situations? Why do I always get myself into crunches like this? What if this happens again? This definitely will happen again. I can’t help it.
I felt a massive contradiction between the reality of my life in that moment and my mental image of an ideal work day. Eventually that feeling of failure coalesced into a mass of doubt that lived inside me — a physical discomfort lodged squarely in my solar plexus. I realized that I’d screwed up.
After I finally finished the project, I saved the manuscript to a floppy disk, stuffed it into an envelope, and drove the package to a 24-hour post office at the airport. (This was back in the days before email and attachments, back when we sent physical objects via overnight mail.)
After getting back home, I undressed, went straight to bed, and stared at the ceiling for an hour. My mind was still grinding away. It wouldn’t stop.
Feeling defeated again, I got dressed and left my house for a brisk walk. There’s a lake nearby, and I hoped that seeing a body of water would calm me down.
Feeling unspeakably tired and agitated at the same time, I focused on putting one foot in front of the other. This was all I could manage.
Eventually I was reduced to pure physical sensation — movement with no purpose. When I reached the lake, my mind dropped into a pellucid stillness. There I was, just giving up, letting everything go — just walking, just feet lifting and falling, legs moving forward and backward, the body swimming in silence through the chilly air.
I saw the sun peeking out from behind the clouds. Then suddenly it was bright, almost blinding.
A crow cawed. From a distant highway, a car horn sounded. Trucks accelerated and roared for a moment, fading into silence.
As I walked, I could hear myself breathing: in-breath, out-breath … in, out. At first the breathing sounded like a cat purring. After a while, it got louder, like gushes of wind blowing through a cave.
Then another step into the dirt path…. Breathing in and out…. Sticks cracking beneath my feet…. In, out…. Tingling feet, tingling hands, sensations that rippled in waves from the soles of the feet up to the cheeks and forehead…. In. Out.
Just one step. Then another. Sensations arising and passing…. Just noticing them, just letting go, just giving up…. The purring, the breathing, the wind….
Then a streak of terror, a moment of madness.
I was nothing.
Nada. Sunyata.
Just sensation, one sensation after another, appearing and disappearing — in the spaces between them, nothing I could call me or mine.
Sensations. Space. Silence, and the free fall into it….
But the nothingness was fullness.
Being nothing, I was everything.
I saw.
And I awoke from the dream of time.
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