That was a hard day for a lot of people.
And for others, it was perfectly natural.
On that day, the Furthur Festivals, which had continued even after Mystery Box and Ratdog and other bands with former members of the Grateful Dead had decided they were ready to settle down or die, had the best light show ever. A vast number of the hippies present were tripping their brains out, and most of them swore that they either saw one UFO or several hovering over, but half were convinced it was merely the light show (though merely was an understatement, for it was, by far, the most spectacular light show they had ever seen).
On that day, a Mexican woman saw tears flow from the eyes of Virgin Mary, and blood from the hands and brow of Jesus Christ, the cruficied and risen Lord.
On that day, a Zen monk went to meet his rishi, and discovered that, somehow, the solution to the koan, which was ultimately the solution to the puzzle of the Universe, had revealed itself to him.
On that day, many other strange things happened. Indeed, shall many strange things come to pass.
.oOo.
John Yang sat in quiet meditation, preparing for the Shaolin kung-fu class he would soon be attending. Let the mind settle. The image invoked in Lao-tse's classic Tao Te Ching was that of muddy water. The mind is like that muddy water, stirred up, thinking too much. The idea is to let it settle, let the mud of conception settle and then reflect the world with your water-clear mind. Sounds easy enough, but try it some time.
So, in doing this, a number of tricks have been developed to help settle the mind. Tricks like breathing exercises, like yoga, like chanting strange words like "Om" or "Shanti Shiva." (And, some would argue, tricks like priests with incense intoning Latin, passing out bread and wine, with colorful stained glass mandala windows.) John wasn't really using the more complex tricks, he simply concentrated on his breathing--Breathing in, I am breathing in, Breathing out, I am breathing out--it's all stuff from the 118th Discourse of the Buddha, the lecture on how to use your breath to gain enlightenment. Breathing in, I feel bliss, Breathing out, I feel bliss.
And, when he was fairly settled, and was no longer troubled by conceptual thought clouding his perception of what was really going on in the outside world, when, to use an old cliche, his doors of perception had been cleared, then often strange things would happen. It was through these strange things that John had come to realize that the baby is actually not born a blank slate. For after he had put himself in the mind of the infant, as Lao-tse so recommends, he found a wealth of wisdom breaking forth.
This would be one of those times.
Breath in through the nostrils, fill the lungs, hold, breathe out through the mouth. Steady. No thought.
Really, my narration can hardy suffice to relate what was going on in his head. (You'll find that will happen often in the upcoming events, many have encountered the same difficulty and decided that it's impossible, and while I agree, I still attempt to wrap words around these events.) There really was no thought in his head. No words whatsoever. He was simply observing his body, observing his breath, experiencing his lungs inhaling and exhaling. This is the point a lot of earlier meditators reach when the thought suddenly occurs to them, "Hey! I'm meditating!" and immediately afterwards, "Shit! Not any more," as the flow of words begins to pour again.
And John floated in his Universe of breath, feeling the ebb and flow of energies, life energy, moving in through his breath, and out through his breath, to become the vital breath-energy of a plant, which would then return it to his lungs.
Breathing in, breathing out.
Slowly.
John, rather that should be put in quotes, for the personality known as "John Yang" had ceased to exist, the identity was no longer there, only a bare awareness-principle observing the Universe, noticed the ebb of flow of energy extending through his other actions. How energy came in many different forms, and was continually being transformed, and recycled. Through food, through waste, through breath, through sex, through exercise. Life-energy transmuted from body-energy, and transfigured into the Spirit, which was near Tao.
This process has gone on a very long time, he realized, but not eternally. As his awareness slipped deeper into the workings of his Self. He found himself viewing a movie, running backwards--his own life. But seeing every intake and output of energy. Seeing where he ate, where he eliminated, where he breathed--seeing that piece coming in or going out, and even following it, through the food chain, through animal and plant. Following, though, a central focus of attention, a focus that ended up being an infant, an embryo, floating in the womb, peaceful.
Floating blissful.
Breathing in, breathing out.
But it didn't stop here. He was no longer whole, but seed and egg, split from father and mother, and still moving backwards, through their lives. No longer saw from the viewpoing of one individual organism, but rather from the essence of him before he was born. "What was your face before you were born?" It's a Zen koan, and it was being answered for him.
Back furthur. Through humanity into
Breathing in, breathing out.
the first brush with Divinity, which granted us speech, that first brush with the Transcendent Tao, which flows through all things, and the falling from that Tao. But falling in reverse. What was merely a collective, racial memory floating vaguely had become a reality, and passed away again, as he moved through animal bodies. Back through mammalian evolution. Back to the caves. Back to the trees in the jungle. Fanged and furred forefathers tore into each other, and still the move back, to slithering reptiles, to mud-caked half-fish creatures crawling up on sunny shores, to slippery fish
Breathing in, breathing out.
and protozoa, tiny single-celled organisms, and back furthur.
John, what had previously been John, now encompassed all of life, through all of time, on Earth. No time, no past, present or future. All at once, he was every evolutionary twist, every genetic turn, every single animal or plant which had ever grown on this Earth. The Earth herself, a planetary mind, a World Soul, nourishing and pruning her surface. And every single one of those creatures, including the Earth, looked up, for a moment, to the stars.
Twinkling stars.
Breathing in, breathing out.
The illusion of personal identity returned just as quickly. It's a necessary illusion, for us to function in society. Something else entered John too, what he could not tell, but he called it Great, for lack of a better word. He rose, shakily, no longer the totality of life-force on Earth, but instead just John Yang, on his way to Shaolin. Not just. More.
And not only that...there was something to do.
.oOo.
Wasn't nearly so spectacular for Nick Johnson. Nick had a wild dream. A vivid dream, too.
Nick liked to lay down in the early afternoon, just after getting home from high school. Not like there was anything to do in his small Iowa town. Especially for a nerd like him. No, his action started late at night, when everyone was asleep.
Nick, you see, only looked like a nerd, to those ignorant fools who surrounded him every day in that prison of the mind at which he was educated. No, no, Nick was a hacker.
The evidence here abounds. Just take a look. His floor littered with techno toys, computer magazines. Phone equipment. And his computer system. Much finer than his stereo (which itself was pretty nice), or anything else he owned. Modem. His link to the outer world.
He sat before them, every night, moving through worlds far beyond the imagination of the other kids. Indeed, beyond the imagination of most adults! He had seen the bare architecture of the fine palace of the Internet, crawled down its back doors and secret passageways, dirtied his hands adjusting the plumbing. Here he had friends, a reputation, a life. A life which thrived behind the dead screen of what most saw when they went poking around the Information Superhighway (term only included hopefully to elicit as much nausea from the reader as it draws from Nick--or even me.)
So he rested in the afternoon, since he rarely went to bed before the first flickers of dawn.
His dream was pretty vivid, as I say. It involved him coasting through the air, flying high above the city. The necks of those down there craned in amazement to see his form streaking across the night sky. Each sensation, the wind blowing through his hair, the cold bite of altitude--was so real...this can't be a dream!
When he awoke, that evening, as the rays of sun were winding down, he noticed that his bed had grown considerably harder. The next thing he noticed, as Lord Morpheus released his foggy grip a bit more, was that it wasn't his bed, but the ceiling.
After which he fell and bounced out of bed, quite dazed, as you might imagination.