Saturday, February 10, 2024
I was walking recently, and in front of me was a black chihuahua with his owner. Every little thing that whisked by him drew in his attention. A smell, a noise, a person, or a bike would snatch him up. His ears would move towards everything they heard; then his nose drew him into a passing scent; then his eyes caught a glimpse of a passerby, and he moved towards them. This little dog was zigzagging across the path in a frenzy of sensory overload. Everything that stimulated him whisked his attention directly towards it. The frenetic surface caught him into a frenzy, and his poor senses were on overdrive!
Like that chihuahua, I see many people gasping at the surface. But not far from the surface lies a depth of sustenance which is connected to the root, the source of life. Rarely are we curious about the canvass as the images on the canvass are too enrapturing! There’s never any interest in the presence which makes the activity possible. The foreground gets all of the mental bandwidth, and the background is ignored or possibly dismissed as “nothing.”
If the surface is drowning you, try diving in instead. The surface is too loud, too enthralling, and too stimulating. The surface is turbulent too, but if you dive down a little bit, things suddenly go quiet. Go further, and you’ll experience the void, the primordial truth, the source of all things, the originator. Where is this again? You can find it within yourself. Stop, dive down, close your eyes and sink into an open heart. The presence of the still void will be there to catch you. When you return from the depths, bring that essence of stillness with you, and you can live like a prince in the chaos of the sea’s surface, while everyone else is acting like an exhausted chihuahua.