The Ways of Wind {part 3}

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You’ll remember that this month’s meditation series is a series about the ever-changing wind and the play of opposite forces in our daily lives. Good & evil, praise & blame, joy & sorrow, etc.

Last week {part 2} we looked through the lens of Buddhist teachings on the 8 Worldly Winds, and that we never know when the wind will change directions. We were offered a solution of learning how to live in the ‘middle’ or with equanimity. 

Now, I love learning how these same ideas permeate time, location and culture. Lately, I’ve been reading an ancient Jewish mystical text known as the Sefer Yetzirah. The interpretation I’m reading is written by Rabbi Jill Hammer - it is a story about creation, the elements, the cosmos and God.  

As the text explores opposing forces such as delight and suffering, merit and guilt, even fire and water, Rabbi Hammer writes, “even things so diverse as pleasure and pain are still made up of the same building blocks, the same human consciousness and experience, the same divine creative force. The wheel of letters contains all phenomena. All happenings are ultimately one, even when they appear radically different. When we understand this, we can come to a state of equanimity within the cosmos.”

It is all the same wind, just blowing differently.

And, the suggested solution, over and over again, is Equanimity. 

Rather than fight with the present moment, can we learn to be with it exactly as it is?

Philosopher and poet Mark Nepo describes it so beautifully when he offers -

“We are all continually asked to learn how to ask for what we need, only to practice accepting what we’re given.”

Join me for today’s discussion and 20-minute guided meditation on The Mindful Minute. Today’s meditation is inspired by the guided visualization Higher than Delight, Deeper than Sorrow written by Rabbi Jill Hammer.