The Acid Diaries (Christopher Gray) / quote 80 of 125
The present moment as the only place without suffering
This is the very worst of the worst, I remember thinking—when, lunging unannounced like the other insane emotional swings of the afternoon, the pain just vanished into thin air. I found myself gazing around the apartment as though it were the very heart of the Mystery. There was no thought. I was both alone and simultaneously an integral part of everything. I was pure wonder . . . but as against any state of meditation I had known in the past, this lacked any sense of fragility or precariousness. This was solid. Substantial. Tentatively I took a few steps around the living room, then, with the glee of a child, jumped up and down on the floor to see if that dislodged it. Nothing shifted a fraction of an inch. Faintly I could sense the fine-material disturbance of what could have become thoughts, but spirit checked them effortlessly, the way your body corrects its balance when you are riding a bike. In such stable absence of mental activity, any Tom, Dick, or Harry could see what the Buddha saw: that the one place, the only place, where there is no confusion or suffering is the immediate present moment. Perceived thus, every instant is potentially sacramental.