sky ... or clouds?

"The nature of the mind is like the vast sky, like a huge, blue endless sky, very clear, very, very deep and stretching in all directions. It's vast and infinite and clear and empty and transparent and luminous. That is the nature of the mind.


"Our thoughts and feelings and memories are the clouds appearing in the sky. Sometimes the clouds are white and fluffy and we're happy. Sometimes they're big and black and there's thunder and lightning and we're utterly distraught. But either way, they don’t affect the nature of the sky. However black they are, the sky is not solid. However light and pretty they are, the sky is not any more beautified. You cannot make the sky any purer or dirtier. The sky is just something that is, and it's transparent and luminous and clear.

"So why not identify with the sky rather than with the transitory clouds?" ~ Ani Tenzin Palmo

In August 2001, I was invited to participate in a khata ceremony to welcome Venerable Tenzin Palmo to Toronto... and yet it was I who felt welcomed by this kind and inspiring teacher. Her biography, Cave in the Snow by Vicki McKenzie, and her own book, Three Teachings, were among the long-lost items unearthed last weekend in The Great Closet Cleanout.

Interesting how things turn up when we need them most, isn't it?


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