You’ve come a long way to get here. The temple is old, and silent – but you hear distant chanting in other parts of the complex, a low murmur which works its way into every part of you, body and soul, resonating inside you, a massage from the inside to fill every part of you like the sound of a bell.
And just as a bell’s sound diminishes into silence, so too does the sound of chanting fade into the background, stilling your mind and body with it.
And while part of you insists on telling you that you have to be doing something, you notice that that’s not true. Anywhere but here; any time but now; and above all, any other way; you can sense that the truth here is that doing nothing, letting the silence settle your muscles, still your mind, release your consciousness, is the real truth, here and all the way down.
Because it’s so good to do this now, and still feel the dopamine pleasure of your relaxation and the release of your conscious thoughts; the surge of dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin is stronger when you let your conscious mind go, to the point where when you let it all go, you get the strongest rush of the pleasure hormones, and the more bliss you feel as you let your thoughts grow as still as the echoes of the bell.
That still, that’s right, and you realise that you can make it even stiller – still and calm like a millpond, smooth and empty and opaque and as deep as that, and even deeper from now, right at this moment, and deeper still and still deeper, further down, far from consciousness, that’s right, you’re going in the right direction, that’s right.
And now into the silence comes the gentle ringing of the temple’s singing bowl, its vibrations driving you into the stillness of the unconscious mind, where the last of your consciousness has been washed away, and your unconscious mind is all that remains, and just as you reach that point you realise that you can go even further down, and open this page here.
