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It was summer and he was staying at his cabin for a well-deserved rest from work. It was a beautiful morning to sit on the verandah. To the south was an open view of the forested hills. To the north the verandah was enclosed by windows offering a view of the forest behind through the glass. Drinking his morning coffee and looking through the windows at the beautiful forest he felt peaceful and happy. He played around smiling at his reflection in the window. If he focussed just right his reflection looked like his spirit floating out there in the forest. For a moment he lost himself in the scene: ‘The peaceful mind is just like this window,’ he thought, ‘it is both an opening to the world and a mirror in which we see ourselves.’ Suddenly he felt as light as air. He had completely disappeared into the scene around him. Continuing to gaze at his reflection, his mind silent and open, his feelings were somehow projected onto his image as it returned his gaze. The space of his mind became very peaceful and still as his feelings naturally sought refuge in the forest’s leafy hiding places, gathering together like a flock of birds in the fading summer ready to depart. ‘Are my feelings not happy in the forest?’ he wondered. ‘ ‘Why are they still restless?’ He sat at the window the whole afternoon, enchanted. Gradually as the light changed, his reflection disappeared. The sky behind him was reflected in the window and a view of the forest appeared above him where the roof over the verandah shaded the windows. Now the forest looked like heaven and he found that he didn’t miss himself at-all. ‘The forest is ever more beautiful when the ghosts of our minds take flight,’ he thought. ‘And our empty mind is free to roam the sky of our hearts, open and bright.’ ‘Such is true love,’ he thought. Video versionComments are closed.
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Open The Sky - Reflective and creative work by Ajahn Kalyano
