I wish I could say that my first transcendent experience happened outside in nature.
That would sound more poetic than saying that it was in my 8th grade math class. But that’s where it was. I remember… the classroom was yellow, the teacher was Mr. Records, for some reason there were fewer students than normal. It was a spring morning, maybe some of my classmates were on a fieldtrip.
But I remember, so clearly, this feeling of absolute calm. Of bliss, even, descending over me. Into me. Perhaps it had happened before. I vaguely remember a moment in my childhood back yard, I was wearing a soft white cardigan sweater with those soft pearl buttons that we got to wear in the 70s.
But that moment in 8th grade math class is the moment that really stands out as the first time I experienced a moment of total and complete peace, deeper than simple satisfaction or pleasure.
Many pleasant feelings arise when things are going well. And maybe things were going well in that moment – maybe I had just gotten a good grade on a test, or maybe I had a handle on the crazy stress and drama of 8th grade – the homework, track competition, ever-shifting friendship dynamics.
It’s more likely that day was going no better than any other day. What I experienced that day for the first time was something that is separate from any external factors.
Eckhart Tolle calls it “slipping into presence,” which describes it perfectly. It’s the experience of being perfectly present in the moment, accepting all exactly as it is, knowing that there is nowhere else you should be instead, and nothing else happening other than exactly what is.
After that moment in math class (and it truly was just a moment, although it has stayed with me for years and years now), I have had the same sensation wash over me unexpectedly many times, usually outside in nature.
Another time that stands out was when I was home from college, sitting in the woods, my grandmother was dying, and my life was in a very sad, difficult space. Yet there it was – that feeling of peace and calm, even bliss. That’s when I really understood that this feeling transcends external conditions.
This “presence” is a state that is within all of us. This is the quiet behind the business of the mind, the witness, the observer. And best of all, I know now that this is a state which can be cultivated, sought deliberately, and experienced for longer than just brief flashes.
This is the calm below the storm. It is always available to us; we simply must learn how to access it. And while I can’t promise that math class is a great place to practice it, I can state that nature is. Find yourself a quiet moment, some fresh air, then breathe and relax.
When your busy mind kicks back in, let the thoughts go and simply be. Focus on your breath if you want, notice something in nature, do whatever as long as it’s based in the present moment. Repeat this the next day and the next. Repeat this every day in fact, and before you know it, you will be experiencing your own transcendental moments of bliss. Enjoy!
