Deep Experiences

It is notoriously difficult to write about direct experiences in a coherent and unambiguous fashion. I have a clear sense of what I mean by  ‘deep experience’; but I’m not sure that I can convey that sense very well in words. But since this is all I have …

I am aware that the use of adjectives such as deep and shallow imposes a judgement on an experience and that this may not be helpful. However there is a real distinction that these adjectives are pointing to that it is necessary to understand.

The subjective difference has been striking for me. There have been occasions when I have been unsure whether I have had an experience or not. Something has changed, and when I try to contemplate as I used to it doesn’t work. After a struggle I find words that capture something.  This is a shallow experience and is typical of many on a three day EI. In contrast I have also had an experience that has completely overwhelmed me. My body convulses with energy, I am crying my eyes out and full of the most amazing love for everyone and everything. And the words are there instantly, clear and somehow part of the essence of the experience. This is a deep experience. Such experiences do happen on 3-day Intensives, but they are more common towards the end of long Intensives.

The reason why I think it is important to have deep experiences is because of their impact on the individual, and indeed I think it is because of the difference in impact that the adjectives have been used. My first experience, on a 3-day, was deep and changed my view of myself, my life and everything profoundly. I experienced myself as Love. I had been working for about a year on a pervasive sense of worthlessness  that coloured my attitude to everything. The experience of myself as Love made that sense of worthlessness seem comical – it was forever banished. My second experience was shallow, even though it occurred toward the end of a 2-week Intensive. I had been working on another and directly experienced that another suffers.  When I look back on that Intensive and the experience, I realise that I think I gained more from some insights that arose during my contemplation than from the experience itself.

The impact of direct experiences is not just at the psychological level. My first experience awakened a desire for more Truth in me. The second experience barely registered in terms of satisfying that desire. Even calling it a desire is not quite right; it is more that for the first time the experience of myself as Love gave my whole life a direction.

Having a deep experience of the Truth/Divine is a key step in the initial stage of a person’s growth. Without such an experience motivations will inevitably come from or be coloured by ego issues, and as such will inevitably ‘run out’. For most people a profound experience of the Truth/Divine establishes a priority vested in the person’s being, it becomes part of their wisdom and as such is separate from their ego and its desires. And ultimately this is why this first Principle is for you to have such an experience. It conditions all that follows.

Charles Berner set out ten conditions for having a deep experience of the Truth. They are

1 Accept guidance from someone who has had deep experiences
2. Use a focusing tool
3. Communicate completely with NO vagueness
4. Contemplate steadily
 5. Be willing to give up beliefs and pre-conceived ideas  
6.Be willing to express anti-social behaviour, thoughts and phenomena  
7. Be willing for your life to change  
8. Treat people well, by your own true inner standard  
9. Want the Truth for the Truth’s sake (not just for egotistical reasons)  
10. Be willing for it to come out however it comes out.

These are explained in more detail in section 4.6 of the Long Intensive Manual.

Here is Philip Kapleau describing his first two experiences; the first shallow, the second deep.
” ..as I came before him he demanded: “What happened last night?” While I talked his keen eyes x-rayed every inch of me, then slowly he began quizzing me: “Where do you see Mu? .. How do you see Mu?..  What is the colour of Mu? What is the sound of Mu? How much does Mu weigh?”
Some of my answers came quickly, some haltingly. Once or twice the roshi smiled, but mostly he listened in serene silence. Then he spoke. “There are some roshi who might sanction such a tip-of-the-tongue taste as kensho, but…”
“I wouldn’t accept sanction of such a picayune experience even if you wanted to grant it. Have I laboured like a mountain these five years only to bring forth this mouse? I’ll go on” Kapleau said. 

Many hours later, after further periods of meditation and at his next interview with the Roshi:   

All at once the roshi, the room,  every single thing disappeared into a dazzling stream of illumination and I felt myself bathed in a delicious, unspeakable delight. For a fleeting second I was alone – I alone was .. Then the roshi swam into view. Our eyes met and flowed into each other, and we burst out laughing. .  “I have it. I know. There is nothing, absolutely nothing. I am everything and everything is nothing!” I exclaimed, more to myself than to the roshi, and got up and walked out.
Zen Dawn in the West,  P.Kapleau 2^nd Edition, 1980, Rider and Company  p.238-9.