FEAR

Wisdom runs beneath the surface of events in everyday experience, and is linked to them. When the mind is relaxed in its flow, its deeper layers merge into the stream. Then the world reveals its precious secrets in symbols and stories.

One may observe the stream of thoughts and impressions flowing through the mind dispassionately. Personal boundaries begin to dissolve, and consciousness itself becomes the focal point, a point of combustion through which undifferentiated life becomes experience.

The following is an attempt, with a little literary license, to portray what the process may feel like.

Like a spooked deer bounding up a wooded hillside and out of sight, thought careens away from the density of feeling, the fear left congealing in the pit of his stomach. By old habit, he returns to it, allowing himself the experience of its filaments spreading to his chest and throat and jaws. Shrieking voices converge inside his skull. Resisting the temptations to distraction, he settles in the awful vortex until a silent space emerges, and he finds himself in the quiet breath of his body.

Peace to all who read these words.