I’m driving along the city streets at night. It’s late but I feel alert because I’ve just come from a meditation class.
Suddenly the car in the lane next to me starts to merge into my lane. In two seconds we’re heading for a collision.
Adrenaline floods my body – I look, I swerve, he realizes my car is there, corrects his mistake and drives on.
We’re okay but as I continue to drive on, my mind performs an incredible manoeuvre.
It plays out the whole scene again, only this time we do crash … horrifically, in fact.
In 60 seconds my mind plays out this fictional crash in full detail. Want to hear the ending? I end up in hospital, bloody, with a broken jaw, crying. (Just a smidge of drama! And my mind played all that out in one minute!)
As this scene played out in my mind, my body became extremely tense in response and I started to feel anxious – almost panicky.
But then the most wonderful thing happened. I woke up.
In one second, I stepped out of the nightmarish mental movie and into the silent spacious awareness that is prior to all thoughts and emotions.
I was lucid.
I was liberated.
As soon as I saw that it was all just a mind-made fantasy and I was free. I let go of all tension in my body, took a deep slow conscious breath – in and out, and then I smiled.
I smiled a genuine, spontaneous, lovely smile – because I was free.
All that anxiety dissolved in a heartbeat.
All that was left was my natural state of peace.
I enjoyed the rest of my drive home.
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