“Waves roughen the sea and windmill turn because of the wind. Take away the wind and the sea becomes calm and the windmills come to rest. For every effect there is a cause. The waves of desire for things in the material world churn our minds, keep up in a constant state of agitation, scrambling in all directions. What do you think could happen if we eliminate desire?” – Master Silly Mountain
Our various struggles can really get us down sometimes. Life is hard and we need to do whatever we can to keep it together. We are like the sea. We have different forms of emotional baggage and neuroses that cause us all sorts of harm. We want things to be different, we want things we don’t have, or we want things to not change when the truth is everything does. All of these things, our delusions and attachments, are the wind and we are the sea. This is a wonderful analogy for our practice and I like it a lot. We are trying to just settle down the sea. There are big waves sometimes and little waves other times. And sometimes the sea is very calm. People have described the aim of meditation practice in various ways over the years. I like the image of a calm sea.
We are agitated by our desires. And we want to be calm instead.
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