The weather changes frequently in Ireland, sometimes we have four seasons in one day. As a result it is the most frequent topic for conversation when you meet people, at the bus stop, or in the supermarket queue. Yesterday saw rains in England which were described as a "once in a thousand year event". We all want good weather, just as we all wish for smooth sailing in the rest of our life. However our experience is that the weather changes, that we call some types good and some types bad, and that there is very little we can do about it.
Today here in France we have thick fog. Like all other types of weather this can be a useful metaphor for the mind. I sometimes fall into the trap of thinking that I see things directly and clearly, but rather see them through the filters of my own physical, mental, and emotional conditioning. In the past weeks I have come to see how much energy I spend in preparation for or worrying about future events, many of which never came to pass in the manner imagined. It is as Mark Twain said, "I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened". However that does not prevent me from thinking that I see the clear real horizon in front of me, when in actual fact I am looking through the fog of my own interests and fears. A lot of my energy goes into not what is actually happening in that moment, but into the anticipations of what may happen in the future.
One of the traditional reasons for meditation is the cultivation of clear seeing.
When we practice meditation we are strengthening our ability to be pay attention instead of walking around in the fog that we’re usually in. It is one way of trying to see the world clearly, and not staying lost in the wanderings of our minds, no matter what the changing "weather", changing moods or experiences. We try to sit under all kinds of circumstances, whether we are well or sick, whether we're in a good mood or down, whether we feel our meditation is going well or is completely falling apart. In this way we develop a consistency and see that meditation is rather about staying with ourselves, in this moment. Clear seeing starts with becoming aware of some of the habitual patterns in our thinking, our defense mechanisms, and the ways we rehearse life rather than live it.
"This is an essential discovery: our experience of life and the world is strongly flavoured by our own internal cycles of mental weather - sunny, foggy, rainy, sunny, misty, cloudy - and around and around we go: jealous, proud, anxious, craving, excited, deflated. When we look closely we see that we have deeply ingrained habits of distracting ourselves from the present."
Gaylon Ferguson Natural Wakefulness
