leaves floating on water

I am sitting by a mountain stream. There are many small cascades of water and, in between, pools where the water becomes still. In these pools there are floating leaves, autumn leaves that have fallen from the trees and come to rest on the surface of the water. The leaves are drifting ever so slowly, with the gentle water movements and perhaps caught by the hint of a breeze.

As I watch these leaves, I too become still. Their stillness seems to penetrate my being. Their non-doing, their floating, doing nothing. The water is holding them. The breeze is moving them. They are at rest, effortless in this dance. And this slow dance is intoxicating to my being. Sitting watching the leaves, I become drunk: drunk in their stillness, drunk in their effortlessness, most of all drunk in their divine beauty. The beauty of nature, the beauty of being, just being, when all purpose has been dropped, when all desiring has fallen away and one has relaxed into a state of floating in life, as the leaves are floating in the water.

This is the way of meditation and watching these leaves, for me is the natural meditation. It’s beautiful to watch them. It requires no discipline. The meditation just comes: the silence and the stillness. What a great gift these most humble leaves have given to me today – moments of silence, moments of stillness, moments of intoxication.