this is lovingkindness???

A few years ago, after having been out of the Buddhist stream for a long time, I decided to do a self-retreat, doing meditation on the Brahmaviharas. These four qualities--usually translated as lovingkindness, compassion, gladness, and equanimity--are valued in Buddhism, and the meditations are widely taught. Different teachers offer slightly different techniques, but the basic instructions are similar.

First, the meditator brings to mind one of the qualities. Usually, they are practiced in the order above. One moves through a process of directing that quality toward different objects. For lovingkindness, the first object is one's self and the last is all beings. This builds a "muscle" that has the quality of lovingkindness (or whichever of the qualities one is developing) that can be directed at will.

I had done these meditations before, so I figured I knew what was in store. I knew the territory. Instead, I was in for a huge surprise.

I was doing both sitting meditation and walking meditation during my retreat. One morning, a few days in, I was walking down my long driveway, looking at the trees, when I realized that everything was lovingkindness. Wait. How could that be? This isn't what's supposed to happen. I'm supposed to be generating lovingkindness but here it is everywhere. Not only is it everywhere, but it is everything. It simply is. Everything simply is lovingkindness.

The world was pervaded by a beautiful, radiant, transparent spring green. It was alive with this color. Or the color was alive. And it had the quality of lovingkindness. I knew it directly. And it was so uplifting, so real, so true, so pervasive and unbounded and timeless and unconditional...words simply can't honor the experience.

But I was confused. Surely this isn't what's supposed to happen. (This is a theme that recurs when my experience moves outside known territory or doesn't quite fit an image or expectation I have.)

A longtime teacher was on call. He had agreed to help me address any questions or issues that arose during the retreat, so I emailed him and told him of the experience. He told me that these meditations culminate in a nondual experience. I had no idea, but here it had happened. I knew that the Brahmaviharas could be concentration practices, but it never occurred me that a nondual experience would emerge. No teacher had ever told me that. But here I had received knowledge directly.

I can still recollect that experience, see the radiant spring green color--particularly in spring! My entire being shimmers with the memory. My body tingles, resonating with the aliveness.

I share this not to say, "You can experience this, too," or, much less, that you should. I share it because unexpected things happen. The more ideas we have about how something should be or could be, the farther we get from what is. Fortunately, reality (or whatever word you choose, it really doesn't matter) can present itself in all its glorious here-ness when we least expect it, even when we think something has gone wrong! It is our primary, irreplaceable, and most trustworthy teacher.