It is the first of November. It's windy and I'm surrounded by swirling leaves in fiery autumn colors of red, yellow and orange. It's like being in the middle of the movie The Wizard of Oz, the scene where Dorothy is caught in a storm.
Our minds can also be like a storm. Images from the past swirl within us and create endless stories. We carry these images around and believe they are real. Like a filmmaker, we embellish and distort our images.
Which character from The Wizard of Oz will I play today?
- Will I be Tin Man Hickory, looking for a heart?
- Maybe I'm the cowardly lion Lahr looking for courage?
- Or possibly the lost Dorothy trying to find her way home?
At the end of the famous movie, we find out that there was never a wizard, he was a fraud. He couldn't give the Tin Man or Dorothy an answer. Likewise, the stories in my mind are a hoax. In the leaf storm of my mind there are no answers to be found, there is no story that can fulfill me. And if I try to create a story anyway, I just lose myself in the storm.
We can't control the wind, but we can use meditation to let go of our desires and needs to create stories out of every picture we've taken. Letting go, like the leaves in autumn, is freedom from all the tribulations and worries of the world:
- Pain and pleasure
- Profit and loss
- Praise and blame
- Honor and dishonor
We are like a camera with our five senses. We have taken pictures and created our own film in which we ourselves play the main role. We need to let go of this movie. Perhaps you wonder why one would want to give up a life story? People often hold tightly to their photo albums and even write books about their lives. Nothing wrong with that, but we must understand that such stories are not the Truth.
In his song "Blowin' in The Wind", Bob Dylan reminds us that the answer blows in the wind, like the leaves swirling in the air. When we free ourselves from our perceptions, our ideas about one thing and another, our desires and attachments, we can reach the Truth. We realize that we have been given this precious life to become Truth. We become free when we do like the leaf in autumn, dare to let go.
The answer, our true home, is within us, and the meditation method is our companion. It's like Dorothy in the movie said: There's no place like home.
Antoinette
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