Impressions – Passing-by Visitors
Two days ago in the evening my eldest son came back from a ski camp and yesterday he had a strong cold with fever, so that this night he was sleeping in my bed together with my wife and I slept in his bed. In the night I woke up from a dream of which the last fragments I remembered were about Harry Potter and packing books to go to school. Did I pick up thoughts hanging around the corner of this bed?
I sometimes feel like picking up thoughts, impressions or feelings which pop in but don’t belong to me. They seem to come from another person or a situation, and they fade away again when the person is out of “sight”. It’s not just with physical encounters, but also via a phone call, a letter or an e-mail. There is a taste of a quality of the person – it might be joy or sorrow, anger, desire or some power play. Sometimes I mistake these “visitors” as belonging to me, sometimes their echo goes on for a bit longer before dissipating again. If I remain an observer, it helps neutralising the influence. Otherwise I get lost in it for a moment.
I just read in the booklet “On Change”: “Observing change is the means to stay afloat. Non-observation of change drowns you.”
I experienced an anger with an e-mail I received two days ago. In a subtle way the anger was with me until my wife and I spoke about it that the ordering tone in the e-mail had made me protest. There were complex feelings related with it, which, when observed, faded away, and I realised that, without excusing myself, the problem was not with me but with the other person. The feeling then faded away.
In the wisdom teachings the mind is described as the moon reflecting the impressions on its surface. For this you might read the Lunar Messenger on The Play of Illusions. The picture with the reflecting moon is from Tamariu beach, Spain.
