A very common familiar analogy for being awake is the sun that is always shining behind the clouds. The clouds cover the sun, but the sun is still there….This precious unique moment is always here, always accessible to us. It never went anywhere. But we spend so much time pushing it away and resisting it and not liking the form in which it is happening, that we miss it. This is like the clouds coming in. We identify more with the clouds of our nature than with the sun. Pretty much, that  happens again and again. What’s always available to us – which we can come back to, to connect with – is the vastness and openness of our heart and mind in any moment of time.

Pema Chodron, Clouds and Sun