'Roar'

I was doing zazen last night. I've been busy with work and sorting out the new house so Zen is taking a lower priority for a while. I haven't done much serious sitting for a couple of weeks so for the first 20 minutes or so I was pretty distracted.

After that I entered a state which was almost effortless. It was as if the core part of the discursive mind just turned off. Wordlessness is a better word than silence. Reality was a sort of surging 'roar'. Thoughts and words seemed utterly irrelevant to describe it, like an unknown language. It was a roar because the dominant sensation was the sounds of traffic and passersby from outside the window. Yet that roar excluded no part of the phenomenal world.

There were still thoughts going on and I was still able to detach myself from the state at times. I 'interrogated' this state with a few questions.

Q: what is this?
A: ROAAR!

Q: self or no-self?
A: RAAAR

Q: 'neither this nor that'?
A: Close but no cigar. ROAAAAR!

Q: 'oneness'?
A: ROAR

Q: 'neither one nor two'?
A: ROAAR

Q: nonduality?
A: neither yes nor no. ROAAAR!

Q: enlightenment?
A: Just this - ROOOAAAR

I felt there was nothing I could say (or even think) about it. My tongue had been cut out.