Disconnecting and Reconnecting

  This morning, I went to a Buddhist temple on the west side of Toronto, on a site visit to explore the possibility of using it as a potential retreat site for our group retreat in June. I have to admit that I felt calmed by the beautiful surroundings of the temple, yet somewhat disarmed by the fact that I don't know enough Mandarin to know what the others were saying to the Fashi there. Later, on my way to a dentist appointment, I started to reflect on the paradox of connection and disconnection that sometimes happens in one's life.
    Sometimes, I have a sense that the Christian perspective offers a clearer way of saying this than the Buddhist, but I want to say something like, our experiences are always broken. There is no Utopia anywhere where a person feels completely 'in the zone', 24/7, and yet even the disconnecting experiences can be profoundly interesting. For example, one thing I noticed was that the more distanced I felt from the other participants in the site visit, the more my mind simply opened up to the surroundings, as though it were groping for some bigger or more mysterious way to be connected to the world. Picture the metaphor of falling: when there is no branch or leaf on which to grip, one has no choice but simply to fall and completely trust that there is going to be something at the bottom of it to keep one's body intact and buoyed. Or, one can even say that there is no need for a bottom anymore! Had it not been for the initial sense of 'not being a part of the group', I perhaps would have missed the moments when I might see something enveloping in the things around me.
  Some of this reminds me a bit about Jill Bolte-Taylor, a neuroscientist who suffered a stroke and was able to report on the experience as she was undergoing it. Bolte-Taylor found that when the left side of her brain was no longer giving her directives or categorizing things according to preconceived labels, the right side was free to register the vastness of her surroundings, which she describes as a kind of Nirvana on earth. But at the time when this was happening, she suffered a great terror at first. Perhaps it was none other than the fear of losing control (coming from the left hemisphere) but I wonder if it's also not the fear of a bottomless world, where there are no words to signify what is happening to someone. Once a person gets over that initial fear, they gradually start to realize that these concepts they use to filter the world is not necessary for the world to reveal meaning, or be meaningful.
    This experience I have had reminds me that sometimes a person needs to suffer a great period of meaninglessness or disconnection before they can start to appreciate a more profound way of being in the world. How can I describe this 'profound way'? Again, maybe it's best to keep it simple and say that it is a profound sense of trust: I don't need to hold onto the branches to stay afloat. I can trust that there is something greater than all individuals to whom they can entrust themselves. This is more important than being recognized within a community.

Reference:
Bolte-Taylor, Jill (2008). My Stroke of Insight.  https://www.ted.com/talks/jill_bolte_taylor_s_powerful_stroke_of_insight. Accessed May 8, 2017