I Sit In The Dark — Story Time

The scene: I am sitting cross legged on a round cushion, in a silent, darkened room. I sense the flicker of candlelight through my closed eyelids, and the heady scent of sandalwood smoke creeps into my nostrils.

I can hear the patter of rain on the windows outside, but I feel warm and still, wrapped in a black shawl.

I have been sitting like this for hours. There are others in the room. They also sit on cushions, and we form two precisely straight, parallel lines. We face each other, unmoving as statues, sharing the space, but each gathered into our own internal, infinite world.

Now and then I notice my knees aching, and sometimes I long to shuffle and move on my cushion, just a little bit. But mostly I am still, and peaceful, and utterly content. I want nothing more than to be in this room, on this night, in this body.

My journey to this place started, of course, the moment I opened my eyes at birth. But I will jump 30 years to a particular point in time, when I consider this story to have truly begun.

If I surveyed the scene as an onlooker might, I would have seen myself lying naked on my side in an empty bathtub. The water had long dried on my goose pimpled skin, and my damp hair clung to my shoulders.

Grief escaped me in immense, guttural sobs. No-one had died, but I felt like I was dying. No-one had left me, but my heart was smashed into tiny pieces. You see, it was in this moment, as the water drained from the bathtub, that I realised I had forgotten how to love myself, and it had finally broken me.

The bathtub incident really scared me.

For as long as I could remember, I’d lived with a feeling of self loathing that had tainted every part of my life. I was disgusted by my very existence. I’d used various methods to distract me from this pain, mostly drugs. And sex.

Then marriage and motherhood had taken my attention for a while, and it felt glorious to love my babies with utter abandon.

But recently, the darkness had returned, and I was suffocated by it. I felt trapped in a body that I hated, tormented by a mind that seemed to wish me nothing but harm.

I had to do something.

Three days later I found myself, along with five strangers, in the draughty basement of my local village hall. As I perched on a hard cushion, I listened as a young man with a kind face explained the virtues of meditation. We were all invited to sit with him in silence, eyes closed, attention gently focused on the rhythm of our breath.

As I sank into the stillness for that first time, I remember exclaiming to myself how ridiculous this was, how I would never be able to sit quietly for more than a few moments. How I would never, ever, be able to sit alone with myself, without distraction, and with all this pain.

But what came next was a miracle.

As the silence enveloped me, I found myself instinctively settling into the dark space of my body. I soon noticed how the movement of my breathing gently rocked me, as if I was a baby being soothed by her mother. A warm, heavy feeling spread through my body. It was so sensually beautiful and comforting, and I felt it settle gently and permanently into my heart.

It was peace.

And I suddenly knew that I would be ok.

That evening I had joined the meeting of a small group of Zen Buddhists, and I quickly became a regular attendee. I took to the Zen tradition with relish, rising at dawn every day to meditate, before the relentless pace of my single parenting life would hit me.

Twice a year I dropped the kids with my parents to spend ten long days in silent retreat.

On retreat I would wake at 430am, splash my body with cold water, and pad to the Zendo hall. There I would settle on my cushion, sitting through the long hours of an awakening morning. My days at the monastery were simple. I would complete my duties of cleaning or cooking, and then I would return to my cushion, sitting in that perfectly straight line with my fellow retreatants. Sometimes I would slowly pace around the gardens, in a form of walking meditation that got me so high, I swear it was better than any mind altering drug I had taken!

At home, I meditated for longer and longer periods, sometimes all night, unaware that I was often using the practice to punish myself, to cleanse myself somehow of the dreadful reality of being me.

But the strict rules of the Zen tradition also kept me grounded, perhaps for the first time in my life. Slowly, slowly, over time, over years, my pain softened, and my heart opened.

When I finally fell, I fell hard, and it was as beautiful and perfect as those moments when I had first held my children.

It was an April retreat, and I remember that the spring sun was warming my face as I lay on the grass of the monastery gardens.The happiness that I felt in the simplicity of that moment was vivid and deep, and I suddenly realised that I was in love. In love with life, and in love with myself. I was utterly joyous in my solitude, and the spark of this new love gave me chills of excitement.

From that moment on, my new love and I were inseparable! The feeling I had discovered slowly deepened, settling into every cell of my body. And the more I loved myself, the more I found I had love to give others.

Meditation saved my life, that is for certain, but my journey with self compassion will be lifelong.

In recent months, as menopause hits, and I am struck with hot flushes and sleepless nights, I have felt a sudden resurgence of my ancient friend and her dark messages.

She tells me I’m old, and unloveable, and her harsh words sometimes make me cry, and doubt myself.

But these days I see this for what it is, an opportunity to open my heart wider still. To welcome my friend to come sit with me on my cushion, and to be still for a moment, in the silence of my darkened, candlelit room.