itate while in samãdhi, his body hovering quite noticeably above
the floor. At first, doubtful that his body was indeed floating, he
opened his eyes to see for himself. As soon as his eyes opened, con-
cern about the condition of his body caused his citta to withdraw
from samãdhi. He promptly fell back to the floor, landing hard on
his buttocks which was sore and bruised for many days. In truth,
his body did float about three feet above the floor. But by open-
ing his eyes to check, he lost the mindfulness needed to maintain
his citta in samãdhi. Withdrawing suddenly from samãdhi caused
him to come crashing to the floor, like any other object dropped
from a height. Practicing samãdhi later and feeling his body lev-
itate again, he kept mindfulness firmly focused within that state
of samãdhi, and then, carefully opened his eyes to look at himself.
It was obvious to him then that he did levitate. This time, how-
ever, he didn’t fall back to the floor, for mindfulness was present
to maintain total concentration.
This experience taught Ãcariya Sao a valuable lesson about
himself. Yet being an exceptionally careful, meticulous person, he
wasn’t entirely convinced. So he took a small object, inserted it
into the underside of the thatched roof in his hut, and continued
to meditate. When he felt his body beginning to float again, he
firmly focused his citta in samãdhi, and he was able to float upward
until he reached that small object in the thatch. Drawing level
with it, he slowly reached out and very mindfully took it in his
hand so that he could bring it back down by means of samãdhi.
This meant that once he had it in his grasp, he gradually with-
drew from samãdhi to the point where his body could slowly, and
safely, descend to the floor – a point still short of complete with-
drawal from samãdhi. Experimenting like this, he became con-
jacob rumans
(Jacob Rumans)
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