Today, I Visited The Void

Exploring the Inner Landscape

Meditation takes us on a journey inward. We settle into a quiet posture, focusing on the breath.

Sensations arise – the coolness of air, the weight of our body. Thoughts may flicker, but with gentle awareness, we return to the breath. As we persist, a sense of calm deepens.

Colors and shapes might dance behind closed eyelids, a prelude to a spacious inner world – the void – a place of pure awareness. Here, worries fade, replaced by a sense of peace that carries throughout the day.

I begin to meditate

It is a conscious act. I set the alarm for 10 minutes. Sometimes I play pleasant sounds at low volume on my cell phone, not this time.

I stare at my face in the mirror, concentrating on looking at the reflection of my gaze, and after a while that intensity barely fades my face, I see it limitedly diffuse, and it is a subtle change.

Not this time, but sometimes I have been surprised suddenly not to recognize my gaze, to notice a slightly perceptible change in my image.

It is more an impression than an image. Standing with my eyes closed, I peel my tongue off the roof of my mouth, lower my shoulders, and relax my muscles.

I stretch my arms imagining they are lengthening, then my legs also grow, my neck, my back, I imagine that the top of my head is stretching.

The fingers stretch, I feel the sciatic nerve stretching, that my nervous system is calming down.

I open my eyes carefully so as not to focus on anything.

I sit on a blanket, nothing special, just a blanket that I chose because I had it on hand but some time ago I set it aside and use it only for meditation.

I cross my legs and my hands rest on any part of my thighs, sometimes the palms on my knees, other times the fingers intertwined between my thighs, under my belly, others joined like I'm praying.

Even supported on the floor. The back straight, the chest projected. I try not to move during meditation, but I always move to some extent several times. I take a deep breath and exhale through my mouth a couple of times.

Starting my Path

I close my eyes and I won't open them again until the end of the meditation. That's what I keep every time.

When I close my eyes, I start counting the number of times I inhale and repeat the same number as an echo in my mind when I exhale: ONE, one; TWO, two... And I stop counting after a while, commonly I only repeat one and two for some time.

I no longer focus on my breathing, this is an important change: now I focus on breath. It's not the same.

I review the sensations on my skin, some distant noise, I check my surroundings, always without opening my eyes. And my mind is at rest. First it is a forced rest, but it relaxes.

I am descending into my interior, it is something beautiful.

It brings me joy to start noticing amorphous colored flashes in front of my eyes, some are static and disappear, others change color and shape, others look like waves and some draw a trajectory as they cross my firmament.

Then I go back to focusing on breathing. For brief intervals throughout the meditation, I do not focus on anything It is a void in which I become aware of being.

Aware of Nothingness

That is the ideal. But thoughts, memories, concerns, imaginings, doubts, discomforts, and desires arise in spurts or in threads from a key that I cannot completely close.

And my consciousness sometimes goes after them, analyzes them, and elaborates on them.

But I bring it back. ONE, one... It is a misguided dynamic that can frustrate the path of meditation.

But it is important to know that with practice, it is possible to prevent consciousness from going after the thoughts that arise; it sees them from afar, without giving them importance.

And that's not all. The key can be closed with enough perseverance. I enter and exit the void several times, I call it: visiting the void.

And these visits are irregular in their duration and depth, like someone who arrives at the entrance, the living room, or the bedrooms.

And I enter the void. Then I feel like I'm going uphill on a straight path. I focus on following the path and I'm excited to notice that something has changed: It's as if instead of going from North to South, it were going from East to West.

And I become aware that it is the same: I am still walking uphill. I left the void. My mind returns to its concentration: ONE, one... This cyclical movement takes place wrapped in time, free of space.

Today when the alarm went off, I came back from the void, coming out of meditation like this is a happy event.

Before opening my eyes, I commit to feeling happy and relaxed, I'm going to sleep well. I'm going to be patient. Today and here I open my eyes without looking at anything in particular, I breathe a couple of times, I get up slowly, and I stretch a bit.

Thank God for this day.

Thank God for letting me breathe.