If our ordinary, self-centered viewpoint is dominant, rocks and tree roots are undesirable. But if we change our point of view, then the very fact that there are rocks and tree roots makes the valley stream more beautiful and the sight of waves breaking upon them beyond description. When we perceive joy, anger, happiness and sorrow as enriching our lives, just as rocks and tree roots and water spray embellish nature, then we are able to accept whatever happens and live like flowing water, without clinging to anything.
The silence of the storm dominated everything. There are no words to describe a quiet so potent. I knew the snow was echoing a stillness that exists, hidden, in everything. I saw that this stillness generates all life. And sitting there in the snow, I wept at the profound sound and power of that silence.
I began to see the falling flakes as yellow bursts of energy, as light and as I looked at the light I saw that its total composition was Love. That night I suspended many cherished beliefs. The snow was alive.