Bask in the eternal sunshine of your mind, even on gloomy days. How? Pay attention to the Silence!
Have you ever taken a flight on a cold, gloomy day in the middle of winter, feeling happy at the thought of your awaiting winter sun holiday? As the plane ascends, suddenly it breaks through the cloud and if you’ve been fortunate enough to have gotten a window seat, the light suddenly changes, and you’re hit by the unexpected sunlight even before you reach your holiday destination!
As the nights draw in, and we witness days in a row of blanket cloud, you may be getting a slight sinking feeling after the joys of the glorious summer. But I want to draw your attention to a little pedantic detail; the sun hasn’t actually gone away or anywhere. It’s still shining gloriously nearly as it was at the height of summer, albeit maybe a little further away and lower on the horizon.
Little comfort, you say! It’s still dull and gloomy down here where I am! Maybe so. But perhaps it’s just a matter of perspective. What if you could change position, instead of experiencing the ominous shadows the clouds are casting down on you, you rise above the clouds, looking down on them and continue to bask in the glorious light.
And how exactly can one do that?
I’m not suggesting you book on a flight on every cloudy day, although you might be tempted to do that. I’m suggesting a much more convenient method – changing perspective in your mind! By moving your attention from the thoughts in your mind, for example, “This dull weather is making me depressed”, to the gaps in between them, the space in which these thoughts occur, i.e. the sunshine.
Pay attention to the Silence
Try it now! See if you can pay attention to the silence in between the thoughts. See if you can sit in the sunshine of the space in which the dark cloudy thoughts complaining about the cold and the rain are occurring! Put your attention on the experience of your existence, the perceiving that you are! Bask in the light by which you are seeing the clouds. Clouds may still come and go, but to the sun, they really are just passing clouds!
How do you experience the sunshine when you can’t even see it? It’s true, sometimes you can’t see it, but it is so powerful that you can feel its effect. I mean, without the sunshine even on the cloudiest of days, we would be in total darkness. There would be no light or warmth at all. So, even when you have a million dark thoughts cross the landscape like a hungry pack of wolves, there is still some space, and light by which you are experiencing.
I once had the following experience. My mind was going so fast. One thought after the next. So fast, I was getting worried. I had a thought – “I’m going crazy!”
And in the very next instance, I thought that surprised me…
“That’s just a thought.”
In that moment, all the spinning instantly stopped, and I experienced complete silence. It was as if I had called my mind in a bluff. I was stunned at how quickly the dark clouds evaporated into nothing, by seeing them for what they were, thoughts!
So the next time you’ve got a cloudy day, let the sunshine through. Focus on the feel of it, the light of it. It’s the power by which you are seeing everything. Stop chasing clouds. See what happens. You might even get a tan!
