A Moving Wheel

 After the meditation practice tonight, we had a long sharing. In most situations where the sharing is long, I may start to fidget or get restless after a while, but this time, I just practiced being still and present. What I felt is a bit like the mind is a very vast and wide space, and even when there is movement, the movement is taking place in the midst of this vastness. One could think of it in this way: if you had a very small aquarium with fish that are moving quickly within it, you are bound to think that the fish are darting frantically in a small space, whereas a much bigger space registers less movement even when the fish are moving at the same rate. Why is that? I think it's because the mind registers all the phenomena as a totality and there isn't a single location you could point to and say, 'that's my mind'. Without a reference point to compare one position to another, everything is moving, but nothing is reacting to the moving. There is a kind of observation around everything, in which emotions arise but there are no accompanying reactions or frantic counter-movements. Essentially, things start to look harmonizing with each other, even when different emotions arise.
   It's hard to describe this intellectually, and I am afraid that I can only really have this experience after a period of meditation! But at least this kind of experience forms a template, and the more one can practice it, the more faith and confidence one has that it's possible. Another analogy is that of a wheel that continues to move even after a bicycle has tipped over on its side. The wheel represents all the karma from the past, whereas the unmoving bicycle represents the still awareness. While the wheel moves according to conditions, the mind doesn't.