We had a wild, wet and windy Sunday, and snow early this morning, and we see the reports of very cold weather in the US and in Eastern Europe. Always a useful way to practice – we see that we like to label our experience (“bad weather today”) and it also prompts us to reflect on how we are working with the changing conditions in our inner lives and in each day. as this quote from Toni Parker reminds us:
We call it “weather” but what is it really? Wind. Rain. Clouds slowly parting. Not the words spoken about it, but just this darkening, blowing, pounding, wetting, and then lightening up, blue sky appearing amidst darkness, and sunshine sparkling on wet grasses and leaves. In a little while there will be frost, snow and ice-covers. And then warming again, melting, oozing water everywhere. On an early spring day the dirt road sparkles with streams of wet silver. So — what is “weather” other than this incessant change of earthly conditions and all the human thoughts, feelings, and undertakings influenced by it: Like and dislike. Depression and elation. Creation and destruction? No entity “weather” to be found except in thinking and talking about it.
Now — is there such an entity as “me,” “I,” “myself?” Or is it just like the “weather” — an ongoing, ever-changing stream of ideas, images, memories, projections, likes and dislikes, creations and destructions, which thought keeps calling “I,” “me,” “Toni,” and thereby solidifying what is evanescent? What am I really, truly, and what do I think and believe I am? Are we interested in exploring this amazing affair of “myself” from moment to moment?
Toni Parker, The Wonder of Presence and the Way of Meditative Inquiry
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