The great birch tree stands solitary in the middle of the meadow. Sunlight scatters beautifully through its leaves as the night gradually makes way for the dawn of a new day. The delicate scattering of light could easily be overlooked by a restless mind gone astray within its own projections. Thankfully, the mind is peacefully and utterly stopped, resting in inner silence. Some morning dew glimmers softly in the tree's foliage, emphasizing the silent whispers of the scattering light. An eerie mist slowly recedes on the farthest side of the meadow, creating a harmonious background for the view, embracing the tree's magnificently still appearance.
One feels a profound sense of unconditional being while observing the tree's form—the great trunk extends into a complexity of unpredictable structures of branches and leaves. The variety of those structures is overwhelmingly beautiful. One's sense of being intrinsically connects with the birch tree's great stillness, entwining in the same overall experience where the perceiver and the perceived are not separated in any way. Unity prevails. Stillness breathes, underlying the glimmering of the leaves in the morning light and their slow movement in the soft wind blowing from the north.
What is this so familiar being that contains both stillness and movement? How does it connect all separated points of perception into one prevailing, unified experience? Why is it so delicate that even an echo of a thought can obstruct its primordial, infinite, and quiet existence? How come it has the potential to softly and silently disarm the whole structure of the human mind—one's identity, habits, beliefs, vices, and virtues—yet even the tiniest movement of the mind obscures the great stillness of that being?
For a few fleeting moments, one's mind is puzzled by the paradox. Then, the mind curls within itself into an infinitely small space and sees once again the nature of its own futile attempts to rush through intellectual dead-ends. There's nothing to understand about this being: nothing to know and no knowledge to apply to actions. The familiar silence descends upon the surrounding world after witnessing the mind's curious play of engulf and retreat. Nothing of true value was found in those fleeting moments of intellectual arrogance. Only a memory of soft wind blowing and silent light scattering through the forms of thought remains.
One turns away and heads back inside, smiling and knowing that this seed of stillness will be cultivated for days or even weeks before being written in words. Then, when the time is right, words appear and writing occurs. The seed will grow into branches and leaves, welcoming all the beautiful rays of the morning light to read the words. And they'll take the same sense of stillness with them, cultivating it for their time in the depths of their own silence.
Then, eventually, those rays of light will grow familiar with the delicate yet ever-present being that underlies and connects everything. They, too, will stumble upon their own great birch trees in the silent meadows.
