There is nothing more beautiful, simple, elegant, pure, powerful and perfect than a still, motionless flame. To focus on a still candle flame is one of the best, most effective and rewarding concentration exercises, for it can bring forward all these essential qualities from our own heart and usher us almost effortlessly into the light and serenity of meditation.
Yet even the slightest movement of air, not to mention a breeze or draft, can throw the flame into a state of agitation. The moment the flame’s poise is disturbed, it loses much, if not all its clarity, beauty, purity and charm. And it becomes almost useless as a tool for concentration or meditation. A strong gust or gale can even obliterate the flame.
Our mind is this flame. Thoughts, emotions and distractions are the drafts, wafts, gusts and breezes that perpetually disturb our mind’s equanimity. Even small, seemingly innocuous thoughts diminish our mental clarity; wafts of opinion tilt our mind out of shape, contorting its elegance; gusts of prejudice distort and disfigure our mind’s beauty; drafts of misbelief cripple our mind’s agility; while full-blown gales of doubt, fear or hatred shatter our mind’s strength, snuff out its light and render it useless for any good purpose.
All our mind’s unique brilliance, beauty, subtlety, ingenuity and latent power is revealed, accessible and available only when our mind, like the flame, is in perfect poise.
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Like our mind, very pure rock salt allows light to shine through, and from this light, a block of plain but pure rock salt derives tremendous beauty and appeal. Most rock salt, however, is a mixture of various elements. This impure rock salt does not transmit light, and is hence neither beautiful nor appealing. So also, an impure mind.