The sky is mostly covered by clouds, but a section is clear, and the afternoon sun shines through. It looks like the doorway to heaven, but without all the man-made gods that stand guard. What beautiful color. A hint of warm pink amidst the gray. The sight is so wondrous that it empties the mind, and for a moment there is only beauty and wonder, like that of a new born child seeing the world for the very first time.

For a short while the rain was pouring. But now all has been quiet. The birds are rejoicing the coolness of the air, sounding their music in the distance, aloof and light with joy. Even the trees are dancing with the breeze. The butterfly has come out, and without the rain, it now roams about in its patternless routine. The wet ground gives out a sense of freshness, and that freshness lives on the skin, in one’s breath, in the gray and clouded sky. Rain has the quality of cleansing. It is not like fire that burns, but more gentle, nurturing, giving. Now the breeze has stopped, the trees and their leaves stand still, so absolutely still that one wonders if they are meditating. There is tremendous energy in stillness, that silent potential, quite like the quiet before the storm, that is capable of explosive creation. When facing and listening to such stillness, the mind also tends to become still. And when it is still, no worries enter it, no fear bothers it. The mind then is truly happy, in bliss, moving with every existence in a dance so total and harmonious that friction seems like nothing but a made-up dream.