Windows.

Windows are used for many things; protection from the elements, to allow in light, to open for some fresh air, or to afford a view of nature.  Windows can be painted on a wall, to give a sense of openness in a closed room.

If I were to compare the difference of looking through a window and actually going outside, I would be able to feel the elements, the sun or rain, the temperature and the time of day.  I would be able to touch what I could only see through the window.  I could take a breath of fresh air.  So, actually going outside would bring the difference between observing the snow falling from behind the window, and literally feeling the snow falling and melting on my cheeks and eye lashes. On snow days, most  children want to go outside as opposed to sitting by a window, watching all day.   A fast sled ride down a hill, a good snowball fight with your friend.  Catching a snowflake on your tongue is a real experience.  Then, come inside and warm up with some hot cocoa.

The manifestation of appearances is the actual presence-ing of the appearance within the experiencer.  Given that, let’s take another look at our window.  We are so accustomed to windows that we hardly notice them unless they are broken or open when it’s raining.  I often wonder about pure awareness, like a window without glass, naked.  That experience of sheer beingness, the  simmered down essence of who I am at the very core of my being, that experience of unconditional love.   Love of the Self, or the infinite, radiant and simple love of what is.  I wonder as I look through the looking glass, what my experience would be if I could break through the window, smash my concepts, my prejudices, my judgmental, obsessive, meandering mind.  I wonder what it would feel like to fly thru the window and merge with my own truest reality.  But, on the windowsill of my mind, I sit.  Watching, while the other kids play in the snow..

What, I ask, would it be like to see directly into pure awareness, with no boundaries to my vision, inside or out.    Pondering this, I notice that a certain holding on is erased.  I relax.  I might now sense the life in every appearance, I might see things for what they really are, and feel part of this mandala of my life, or my circumstances in the moment.  As I gaze into the clarity of the light before me, a divine experience of beauty arises.  A feeling of luminous, absolute stillness pulsates within, something like a top that is spinning so fast that it looks perfectly still.  I feel a warm glowing energy.  Thru the windowless window, a frame which was holding the picture or projection of my mind, disappears . Now, what is manifesting is part of me, I am not just sitting and watching, witnessing from behind this old pane of glass.  There is no glass, no window, and nothing but clear and unbounded skies ahead.  Windows open and close.  Life begins and ends, people come and go, and the ever changing mandala glistens, like snow falling gently, creating a blanket of white light and peace.  Being so, the heart, magically,  finds her home.


written by Karen Ferguson