This point marks the threshold between the second and third dhyanas. Crossing this threshold is one of the most difficult challenges in the spiritual journey. You feel blocked by an impenetrable wall. Bodhi is a glimpse of the other side, as you get when you drop a quarter into the telescope near the Golden Gate Bridge and the shutter snaps open for a two-minute look at sea lions frolicking on the rocks. But these first experiences of bodhi are over in an instant, leaving you so eagerly frustrated that you are willing to do anything to get through. You feel your way along that wall from one
...more