The mind is like the ocean, a vast pool that reflects its surroundings. Just as wind blowing across the surface of the water obscures its reflections, our mind, when tainted by delusion, does not see clearly the True Nature of the formations it reflects. Rather, it perceives a version of those formations, unable to see their True Suchness. We can extend the analogy further in that the ripples and waves cause the surface to continuously reflect different objects, mirroring how our monkey mind leaps from idea to idea to idea, out of control.1 But if we learn to control the wind, we can still the ripples, and attend to a single object. The more we practice, the more still the surface becomes, and the longer we can be mindful of our chosen object.
What happens when we learn to still the wind entirely? We become capable of deep examination of the object of our mindfulness, uninterrupted, without taint. Suddenly, we are no longer seeing the object filtered through our relative biases, but unblemished, in its True Suchness.
This is how we see Truth.
1Analogy derived from Joseph Campbell's lecture entitled "Mysteries of India."
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