Mind

“Like a fish out of water,
Stranded on the shore,
Thoughts thrash and quiver.
For how can they shake off desire?

They tremble, they are unsteady,
They wander at their will.
It is good to control them,
And to master them brings happiness.

But how subtle they are,
How elusive!
The task is to quieten them,
And by ruling them to find happiness.”
                                    - Dhammapada

Mindfulness.  Mist on mountains from a distance are opaque and shroud the mountaintop from view.  From the valley floor, we look up to the mist and we see it clearly.  From the bottom we climb up to the mountaintop to get a closer look.  When we arrive at the summit, the mist is not as it seemed from below.  Up close, we can not see what is obvious from far away.  Perhaps the sun has burned it away or the wind has cleared the view.  Or, perhaps, it is that we are so close to the mist that we can not distinguish it from pure air.  From the mountaintop, we see the next cluster of mountains to the west, cloistered in mist.

Mindfulness, is like the mist far away at the mountain top.  It can be looked upon and analyzed from a distance.  From that vantage, we can remark on the unsteadiness, the wandering of the unbridled mind and see clearly the pitfalls and dangers.  We can see how ruling our thoughts can release us from suffering.  But like the mist in the mountains, our thoughts and our mindfulness is elusive.