Are You Trying To Avert The Gale Force Of Life?
Jan 2nd, 2011 by Johan
Trees Growing In The Wind
The Wind.
The gale force wind blows for seven days and seven nights. It howls past the corners, it growls down the chimney, forcing age old trees even further along; further away from the approaching wind, further than the branches can and want to allow.
After day one of this frighting wind people are hopeful that the wind will not blow for long. After three days all hope has faded and is replaced with frustration and emerging evidence of feelings of desolation. After seven days they cannot believe that the wind can ferociously blow for so long. Conversations now, respectfully, focus on the wind.
From the conversations it’s clear……..
Every gush cuts deeper through the dried skin and flesh. The wind leaves a mark on exposed bone. As we count the days the bone gets cut even more, deeper and deeper. The wind is determined to create lasting memories. From a long time ago; we remember the exposure and loneliness associated with the wind. Again, the wind recalls our deep seated fear. The wind affects our emotional well being, it stretches our tolerance and our nerves become bow tight. We are ready to fire. We are ready to pack up and go. We want to react.
“It’s never going to stop!”
Aversion! What can we do to avert the wind? How can we avoid the wind?
We may not acknowledge it, but we resent the wind. We become passionate aversionists. And the more we try and avert the wind to more emotional power we give to the aversion efforts; the deeper and longer lasting we etch the pain onto our bones.
By trying to avert the wind we expose our vulnerability, our misery, and hopelessness. Unhappiness results.
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The Gale Force Of Life:
- Is it just possible that the wind is nothing other than a blow-torch blowing a gale of oxygen onto the fire of life?
- Is it just possible that the wind is our gift; quickening the road we choose to walk?
S.N. Goenka on The Root Of Unhappiness:When something unwanted happens, we react with aversion towards such events. When something that we want is not happening, we react with craving for such events. Thus craving and aversion are at the root of our misery. In addition ignorance of these causes create even more misery.
“You know quite well, deep within you, that there is only a single magic, single power, a single salvation… and that is called loving. Well, then, love your suffering. Do not resist it, do not flee from it. It is your aversion that hurts, nothing else”
Hermann Hesse quotes (German born Swiss Novelist and Poet. Won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, 1877-1962)
The discussion above, may make sense or it may not; the discussion is an intellectual one. Therefore it is pretty useless when you consider the big scheme of things. It’s useless because you may understand it. Understanding is not good enough. Only the experience is uselful; you may not truly know how to practice the act of observing.
If you are interested in experiencing quieting of the mind to enable observation then I can recommend to you a ten day course that I did a few weeks ago.
Have fun observing the wind.
Johan Horak
[This article was first published at HowToStayInTouch.Info. Johan is a blogger sharing stories on life and how to stay in touch. This article may be re-published with out any changes to content or links and should include this signature].
