' A tree has many leaves, and the wind touches all of them… in one way or another. Some
shake, some quiver, some hardly move at all. Yes, the tree knows their trembling; but neither
the wind, nor the leaves it stirs are the tree that feels their touch. Thoughts and feelings are
like leaves; learning to watch them wave is much better than being carried away with every
breeze.'
Learn the Power of a Quiet Mind -
When you want to directly enjoy the sunshine you must go outdoors. You understand you
have to take yourself physically to a place where the warming rays of the sun can fall upon
you without interference. Likewise, when you want to know the powers that circulate through
a quiet mind, you must take yourself to that place where this silent strength can make itself
known to you. To go quiet, you must go within.
To ensure your success in going within and going quiet, consider yourself as being a
naturalist of the mind. A good wildlife naturalist casually observes the diverse ways of birds or
bunnies without interfering. And that's what you must learn to do as you journey within: being
an impartial witness to the life of your own thoughts and feelings. Let them fly and hop around
within you without the slightest concern for their direction or character. Neither resist nor let
yourself be drawn into any of their attention-stealing antics.
Again, all you want to do is watch. Detached self-observation is your aim. Each time you
realize that you're no longer watching, but rather that you've been captured by a thought or
feeling and are being carried along by it, just quietly withdraw yourself from that temporary
psychic wave. Come back to the awareness of yourself in the present moment.
This is the heart and soul of going — and knowing — quiet. Let go, give up, go within, and
watch. And over and over again, bring your awareness of yourself back into the awareness of
the present moment.
Learn to watch and drop your own thoughts and feelings trying to tell you: "You should give
up this worthless, unproductive practice!" They don't want you to succeed and there's a good
reason why: They cannot dwell in that silent world you wish to enter, and that wishes to enter
you.
Slowly, subtly at first, but eventually even beyond your mind's protests, a new, deeper sense
of silence floods into you; filling your awareness with itself and, at the same time, with yet
another awareness that the source of this supreme stillness is arising out of your own being. It
washes everything out of its way. And so arrives a quiet mind.