Unbounded

   Tonight, as with many group meditation practices, I had to practice a strong determination to relax my body, in order to overcome tensions and strains in the spine. After a while, there were moments when I felt such a release and lightness that it felt 'normal' for the first time in a long time. Those brief moments would come and go, and I would later realize that they are only temporary experiences. However, it's interesting how I was still trying to evaluate these experiences in terms of some fictitious standard of 'normal' which I had established in myself.
   When we come to think about spiritual or religious practice, there is a tendency to think of it as a blueprint for how to live and have the best possible experiences. I am beginning to wonder, though, is it conceivable that the direction of spiritual practice is always one step away--never quite within grasp, and not enclosing the universe in any way? For instance, the example of meditation suggests that the process never really quite takes a person to an 'optimal state' or make them into these fixed, 'self-actualized' beings. Rather, it seems more the case that meditation prepares a person to simply be in an unfolding uncertainty, without trying to add a concept of 'going somewhere'. As the Diamond Sutra suggests in particular, the words 'me' and 'enlightenment' only mar that journey by assuming that the world is bounded and transcribed into these easy-to-read lesson plans, whereas in fact there isn't a 'self' learning or growing. In this way, I can slowly let go of the illusory release from tightness or pain, knowing that these releases are never what meditation is aiming to do. They may be side effects of calming the mind, but they are not necessarily states of being to try to achieve.