I If you do not practice for a day, then you are a ghost for a day; if you do practice for a single breath, then you are a realized immortal for a breath. - The Secret of the Golden Flower

Tranquility in disturbance...Who can be patient until life returns to the dance. - I' Ching 47

Men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the vast compass of the ocean, the courses of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering. - St. Augustine

I wrote this many years ago and in these turbulent times and times of change and challenge it just seems appropriate still.

Stress-Restraint-Stillness

This famous photograph has always had a big impact on me. The world is full of these powerful waves of turbulence, cruelty, pain, suffering, setbacks of all kinds – the relentless pounding by waves large and small. Yet somehow there is this calmness, this peace that resides inside. It is hard to remember or find it sometimes when my mind reacts in fear or sadness or frustration or disappointment in the turbulence. But I haven’t lost it yet. On the contrary, as I stay with practice, as I live life as ceremony, the still mountain is more present than ever.

I found it amusing that the lighthouse keeper told in his story that he heard the sound of the helicopter from which this photo was taken and came outside. He realized a giant wave was about to engulf the structure, rushed back inside just in time to save his life. In an interview he said "If I had been a little further away from the door, I would not have made it back into the tower. And I would be dead today. You cannot play with the sea." 

How often have I been distracted by phenomena of the world and strayed too far from the door? Seduced by temptations of physical desires and distractions?  Pulled away by fear? 

The seas are not personal and they are not me.

I am reminded of this poem by Nyoshul Khen Rinpoche

Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind, 

Beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thoughts 

Like the relentless fury of the pounding waves 

In the infinite ocean of samsara. 

Rest in natural great peace