In my earliest days of meditating, well over a year ago, I would often begin a session at the end of the afternoon, closer to bedtime. The living room would be dark, except for maybe a candle, and in the hushed light and reverential silence it was also cool, that space being the closest to the largest window of the house. Winter nights left the floor a cool expanse, broken only by a small area rug on which I sat and began my meditation.
Every time I wondered if I should put on a pair of socks, or grab a robe for around my shoulders, but something told me I wouldn’t need such comforts. And every time that turned out to be true. By the end of my meditation – be it five minutes or 29 minutes – my body would have generated its own heat, and my mind would be so occupied with its own empty consciousness that I wouldn’t be able to give such thought to the temperature of the room. Something about the steady deep breathing and the focused lack of focus would emanate heat and warmth from within, and often I would have broken a sweat without even realizing it.
I don’t have an explanation to such a physical manifestation of meditation, and I’m not going to probe very deeply into online research that may or may not be grounded in reality. All I know is that when I meditate, I have no need for socks or warm clothes – not even in the darkest nights of winter. My mind goes to a place that conjures its own comfortable warmth for my body, and I find it best not to question such wonders.
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