Category Archives: Eight Worldly Winds

In the vortex of the Eight Worldly Winds

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Whatever is going on in your life right now, if you really pay attention, you will see that it is impermanent. For added help in seeing clearly what is arising and falling away, and how to be in skillful relationship with them, the Buddha divided the experiences, these ever-changing winds, into eight categories, presented in pairs. They are pleasure & pain, gain & loss, praise & censure, status & disgrace.
Think of something going on in your life right now and see if it fits in any of these categories.8WW.jpg

These Eight Worldly Winds are naturally occurring. There’s no way to avoid their arising and falling away in our experience. But we can be more skillful in how we are in relationship to them. First we notice how we react to them. Are we caught up in the winds, welcoming some and rebelling against others? In both cases we might feel at their mercy, tossed about hither and yon, feeling broken and bruised. Is this any way to live?
When I first learned about the Eight Worldly Winds, I was reminded of a meditation technique I used to do when my mind was abuzz with planning, worrying, reliving past moments, etc. In meditation I would imagine my thoughts like a whirlwind circling around me. I would sit cultivating such stillness that the thoughts, in contrast, seemed to be whirling faster and faster until they blurred together and my mind could not latch onto any particular worry or plan or regret or desire. I sometimes actively stirred the winds, creating a vortex where I could sit in the lightness of the center. Amidst it all, I was able to be at peace. (You might think of poaching an egg, how you stir up a vortex in a pot of hot water, slip the egg in and it holds its shape. No vinegar needed in this meditation recipe, however. 😉 )
If we sit this way, either creating a vortex or simply allowing the winds to pass through our spacious field of compassionate awareness, we cultivate a space for the calm quiet voice of our own inner wisdom to be heard. If our meditation practice is regular, and especially if we give ourselves the gift of going on retreat occasionally, we empower our ability to listen in to that wisdom, and let it gently guide us to be skillful, ethical, kind and balanced. (Note: If the inner voice is strident or demanding, it’s not the wise inner voice, but a fear-based aspect trying to run the show. No need to make an enemy of it. Treat it with respect, negotiate reasonably, but don’t follow it’s instructions!)
We see the impermanence of all that arises: the pleasure and the pain, the loss and the gain, the praise and the censure, the status and disgrace. We can dance with the wind as a willow tree’s branches sway, while being deeply rooted in wisdom, instead of shallowly rooted and ultimately uprooted by the passing winds of life.
As we go about our day, if we are present and compassionate, we can see the Eight Worldly Winds more easily. When one of them blows through our field of experience, we can acknowledge it but we don’t have to chase after it or run from it.
Can we appreciate gain without fearing loss? For example, can we allow ourselves to love without holding back because we fear losing the person we love?
Can we understand loss as a natural part of the experience of being alive in this impermanent world? Can we be compassionate with ourselves in our grief, but also see it all as part of the dance of life?
Can we enjoy a pleasure as it arises in our experience without getting caught up in craving it and clinging to it?
Can we recognize pain as a bodily messenger to heed and attend? And if the pain is beyond remedy, can we be present with the many sensations within what we label ‘pain’, and recognize how they arise and fall away like parts of a symphony? Can we find other sensations that are happening in other parts of the body at the same time that are neutral or pleasant, and see that the pain is just one aspect of all that is arising in our experience?
Can we accept praise without seeking it? Can we accept praise without reacting against it? Can we accept praise without doubting the praise giver’s truthfulness or intentions?
Can we accept censure when we have done something unskillful and do what we can to make amends? Can we look within and see how this unskillfulness happened, and set the intention to be more skillful in the future? If we are blamed for something we did not do, can we handle our response with clarity and compassion, seeking solutions instead of getting caught up in the blame game.
In relationship to elevated status, can we let it be simply a byproduct of something authentic and skillful that we have done? Can we not see it as a goal or a solution to the emptiness within?
If our reputation is tarnished and we experience disgrace, can we handle it with grace? Can we make reparations? Can we take the opportunity to look within and see how we may have erred. If the accusations are false, can we be skillful in how we respond instead of making it worse or confirming opinions?
At the very core can we remember that none of these Eight Worldly Winds are who we are? When we set the intention to be present in this moment, compassionate with ourselves and others, the Eight Worldly Winds do not define our lives. We all experience gains and losses. We all experience pleasure and pain. We all experience praise and censure. We all experience status or disgrace, to varying degrees. We may experience a variety of emotions and thoughts around them. But as we rest in awareness and compassion, we are supported by a deeper understanding of the nature of our experience that comes from our wise intention and the skillful efforts that follow from it.
Coming into skillful relationship with the Eight Worldly Winds, we can use the questions we have been exploring in the previous posts.
When we ask What is my intention here? we might see that we are chasing praise, pleasure, gain or status, or fighting or fleeing from censure, pain, loss and disgrace. We can look at what we are afraid of. We can pay attention to the stories that arise out of that fear, and we can ask if it is really true.
The person seeking fame may discover the fear of disappearing, not being seen at all. Let’s say they do become famous. Now they are still afraid because they are not being seen for who they really are. Being seen can be pleasurable, but if fear of not being seen is a prime motivator, then all kinds of misery ensues.
The person seeking pleasure may be running away from the pain in their lives. But the pleasure they seek, if overindulged, may ultimately exacerbate the pain.
The person seeking praise feels lost and needs constant acknowledgement in the form of praise to help them feel like they exist at all. They prefer praise, but if it’s not available, then censure gets attention too. At least they are visible!
The person who seeks gain may need it to build their sense of self, to impress others, to prove their worth, or they have a gripping fear of scarcity from some earlier life experience. There is no amount of worldly goods that will satisfy this need. Loss then reflects poorly on them. They may have more than they need to lead a comfortable life many times over, but loss is still threatening, defining them as a ‘loser’.
But if we recognize the existence of the Eight Worldly Winds and see their impermanent nature, we can be in a more skillful in relationship with them. If we practice meditation regularly and openly explore what arises in our field of awareness, we can dance gracefully like willow branches swaying in the wind.
As you go through your day, see if you can recognize which of the Eight Worldly Winds present themselves to you. Then notice how you are in relationship to them. See if you can allow each of them to flow through without making an enemy of it, chasing it or clinging to it. It’s a challenge and a lifelong practice well worth doing.
Report back!

The Buddha’s Eight Worldly Winds

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It’s been really windy lately. I notice that I get anxious in high wind, imagining how it is sucking the moisture out of the already dry landscape. I notice worry that the wind will topple a tree. Indeed the oak across the street just fell so my worry finds reason and grows stronger. I see how my mind gets caught up in imagining how if there were a fire right now, this wind would turn it into a fire storm. My thoughts travel into the past remembering all the times the wind has beaten against the house like this, causing any present discomfort to be compounded. My thoughts travel into the future, wondering whether with global warming, this hard wind will become stronger. Images from newscasts of the devastation caused by tornadoes in the midsection of the US rise up to remind me of the impermanent nature of these structures we call home.

I notice too how with the wind blowing so hard, everything else going on in my thoughts and emotions is tinged with my distressed reaction. Something that wouldn’t normally bother me now causes aggravation because I am already a little on edge. 

This clear noticing of what is really happening in my experience is not to whine about the wind, or to judge myself for making a mountain out of a molehill, but to compassionately notice how the mind takes me on an unskillful journey away from this moment, how it spreads misery in its wake and compounds the potential for suffering. The noticing and compassion are skillful, and as I focus I feel the tension in my body releasing. This is the practice of mindfulness.

The Buddha created a whole set of teachings based on the changeable nature of wind. The Eight Worldly Winds* is a set of eight paired experiences — pleasure & pain; gain & loss; praise & blame;  fame & disgrace. Like the wind they arise and fall away, then arise again and fall away again. All of life experience is like this.
Here is a drawing I did of the Eight Worldly Winds.

8 worldly winds.jpg

Now let’s look at them one by one.

We seek out pleasure, and don’t want it to end so we cling to it. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: When we are afraid it will end, we are not really in a state of enjoyment. Instead we are caught up in the suffering of grasping and clinging. The only way we can truly enjoy pleasure is to let go of the fear of losing it. If we allow it to come and allow it to go, the way we might enjoy spending time with a butterfly who has alighted on our extended palm, we savor the moment. We know it is fleeting.  
We recognize that while we may have the power to capture the butterfly and keep it, if we did so the butterfly would no longer be what it is, would no longer be able to give us the pleasure of seeing it flit and fly from flower to flower. To keep it, we would have to kill it. If we did so, we could still admire the colors, shapes and details of the wings, but the essence of what makes it a butterfly is gone. 
In this same way we can notice how pleasure disappears if we hold on too tight, wishing it would go on and on.


We dread pain. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: When we have a pain and get caught up in how much we don’t want to be in pain, we compound it with self-inflicted suffering. When we are able to fully be present with pain, we can see how it becomes a series of physical sensations that change constantly, diminish over time and eventually pass away.
One of my granddaughters who is an adult now was terrified of bees when she was little. She wasn’t allergic to them but she was still afraid of being stung, so she refused to go out in our garden. I sat with her and asked her, ‘What are you afraid will happen?’

‘I’m afraid a bee will sting me.’  

‘And if a bee did sting you, then what would happen?’ 

‘It would hurt.’ 

‘Have you ever been hurt before?’ 

‘Yes.’ 

‘And what happened when you were hurt?’ 

‘I  cried.’ 

‘And then what happened?’ 

‘The hurt stopped after a little bit and I stop crying.’

‘And then what did you do?’

‘I went and played.’

And with that statement she smiled at me with the light of recognition. Then she hopped off my lap and went straight outside to run around the garden with great joy and abandon.
We can do this for ourselves as well. We can come into skillful relationship with the Worldly Wind of pain, and not let the fear of it rule us. We use common sense, but we don’t stop living just to avoid pain, because that state of avoidance is ongoing pain.
It’s one of the ways we create dukkha, the chronic suffering that comes from our grasping at, clinging to and pushing away these Worldly Winds.

We like to gain a new friend, strength, ability, knowledge, health and wealth, and we are determined to hold on to what we’ve got. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: While opening to the wealth of the world is a delight and there is maintenance required, when we cling to a it we strangle it, whether it’s a friendship or strength, ability, knowledge, health or wealth. When we experience the naturally occurring changes of life, we suffer much worse than simple disappointment. We fall into a sense of diminishment that sucks the joy out of every moment spent with the gains we have made.
We fear loss of loved ones, of health, wealth, strength, ability and anything else we value. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: We create an ongoing state of suffering that precedes the loss. When the loss occurs, as it will, we can’t be present for the experience because we are still struggling, trapped under all the layers of fear we have created. If we can’t bring ourselves to be present with the loss, then how will we ever recover from it?
As women of a certain age, my students and I have all lost some of the people who mattered most to us in the world. So we know about loss. This knowing informs us. We would never wish for it or wish it on anyone, and yet when we are present with the loss itself, when we feel the physical and emotional impact of loss in each moment, we notice how it shifts and changes, arises and falls away. This noticing makes us wiser and more resilient. It carves within us the capacity to hold more love and deeper compassion.


We enjoy praise so we do things to earn it. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: Chasing praise from another person throws us out of balance. We can’t be grounded or authentic if we are second-guessing what someone else would like us to be. Ironically, we can’t hear the praise when if it comes because we are caught up in our hopes, fears and expectations.
As women we may be more prone to make choices in order to get praise. Our feelings may be hurt if our mate doesn’t compliment a meal we cooked. And heads up to husbands: silence is often interpreted as criticism.
Of course we want whoever eats what we cook to enjoy it. But can we live enough in the present moment to arrive at the dinner table having so thoroughly enjoyed the process of cooking that we are not hankering after praise? Can we be so present with the experience of eating the meal, and with the pleasure of the company, that we are not waiting to hear ‘Wow, you are the greatest cook on the planet!’? Expectation sours our own enjoyment. We can’t taste a thing.


We so dread blame that we’re careful to do everything we should and nothing we shouldn’t. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: While it is wise to lead a blameless life by living with integrity, honesty and kindness, sometimes we fail. In a moment of oblivion or distress, we do something that causes harm.
If we are tied up in knots of fear of being blamed, we will be more likely to do something unskillful, since our intention is not aligned with being present and being compassionate, but with some future scolding we might receive.
When blame falls on us can we be skillful in how we deal with it? Can we acknowledge our error or misjudgment? And if the blame is unjustified, can we see it as simply an error and not an indictment of us?


We crave recognition, maybe even fame. Why would we not?
Here’s one reason: Because the longing for recognition drags us out of the present moment. We live in our minds in some future moment when we will receive the recognition we so deserve. If that moment ever comes, we won’t have the practiced skill of being present in order to notice it. We will be craving greater and greater recognition.
Even if we don’t relate to the word ‘fame’, we each have our reputation. Among our family, friends and work associates we become known for certain qualities, traits and behaviors. While praise is a one-time thing, reputation is cumulative, and colors how we are perceived for years to come.
We want to avoid disgrace. Why wouldn’t we?
Well here’s one reason. Disgrace can become such a terrifying outcome that people in certain cultures would rather die than be disgraced. But even if that is not the case, allowing the shadow of potential disgrace to loom over us can really throw us out of balance, blind us to the rest of what is going on in the present moment.  
If we live mindfully, aware of our connection with all life, aware of the impact our choices have on ourselves, those around us and the world, while we will not be impervious to failure or error, we will be more likely to have the wisdom to know how to make amends and assure we don’t make that particular mistake again. We can recognize the universal nature of this and all the Eight Worldly Winds.
Our feelings around reputation can extend beyond ourselves. One student pointed out that if we identify with groups — a favorite team, a political party, a country — we feel connected and affected by their triumphs and stardom as well as their failures and disgrace.
With our previous exploration we can see how we might, through awareness, temper the effect of these Eight Worldly Winds. If notice them, we notice that they pass.
If we note ‘pleasant’ or ‘unpleasant’ for any experience, we strengthen our ability to see clearly the strong lure to get caught up in a story about the pleasant or unpleasant experience, and the emotions that are ready to rise up to further entangle us in associated memories, planning, worry, regret, daydreaming, etc.
At any moment during this entanglement of the mind, we can recognize it, and reset our intention to be present rather than lost in the past or future. When we do this, we begin to see the nature of what is. If we see in this moment one of the Eight Worldly Winds arising, and we stay present to observe it, we will see that it is insubstantial. Under observation it breaks down into component parts. We can see the desire or the fear underlying it. Recognizing the underlying longing or fear, we can be compassionate with ourselves, and that quality of kindness offers a release from the attachment to the Worldly Wind. As we stay present, we see that the worldly wind changes over time. It is impermanent. It arises and falls away.  We can simply be aware of this big wind passing through our field of experience.
If we can open our view wide enough to see the nature of how they arise and fall away again and again, we can find ease in simply being alive and present to experience it all.
Remember the story of the farmer who lost his horse? It applies very well here, so I’ll tell it again.

A farmer’s horse got loose from the corral and disappeared. The farmer’s neighbor said, ‘What a calamity! How will you plow your fields without your horse?’ A few days later the horse returned with six wild horses in tow. Wow! Now the neighbor said, ‘That’s fantastic! What great luck!’Then the farmer’s son fell off the horse while trying to tame it, and he broke his leg. ‘How terrible!’ the neighbor sympathized. The next week the army came and took all able-bodied young men, but not the son hobbling around on crutches. The neighbor could not believe the farmer’s good fortune. At every turn the neighbor reacted as if tossed around on the winds of fortune. But each time, whether the neighbor commiserated or congratulated, the farmer simply said he didn’t know whether this was good or bad fortune. Maybe yes, maybe no. He couldn’t say.

 The farmer was wise. He recognized that none of us know the outcome of any given event, that all things and all experiences are insubstantial, impermanent, and beyond our control. He recognized the nature of the Eight Worldly Winds.

In moments of clarity, when we are fully present, we recognize this as well. We can simply be present with the experience as it arises and falls away. Arises and falls away…

*  ‘Eight Worldly Winds’ is one translation. Others are ‘Eight Worldly Dharmas’, and ‘The Failings of the World’. This is from the Lokavipatti Sutta of the Pali Canon, the earliest scriptures of the Buddha’s teachings, which had been passed down orally from generation to generation of monks for 500 years until in 1 BCE, they were committed to writing.

Buddha’s Eight Worldly Winds

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In exploring the Buddha’s teaching stories and analogies, I find myself elaborating and embellishing. It feels to me as if I am re-hydrating sharings that over the years had become single sentences or bare-bones concepts without sufficient details to make them juicy and alive for us today. It is up to each of you to decide whether these embellishments add or take away from the value of the teaching, but I want to be sure that it is clear what is received teaching and what is elaborated upon by me. I think the most important thing in learning and sharing teachings is that we each return to the well of our own inner wisdom, our own ability to question the veracity of any teaching. If it rings true, we draw from it; if not we let it go.

Having said that, I continue my exploration of the Buddha’s river analogy which students are telling me has been so helpful throughout the week. This time I am adding in another of the Buddha’s teachings, because I see within this river analogy an opportunity to discuss the Buddha’s Eight Worldly Winds.

The Winds are four pairs of opposites. They are: pleasure and pain; loss and gain; praise and blame; and ill-repute and fame. These paired opposites are worldly winds because the winds blow and we are all affected in some way.

We have often talked about how it is not the causes and conditions of life but our relationship to the causes and conditions, the things that happen to us, that we focus on and can skillfully affect. So here are these eight causes and conditions, these eight worldly winds. What is our relationship to them? How do they affect us? Or do we react to them?

Returning to the Buddha’s river analogy of the Middle Way, we can see that wind is definitely something one considers when one is on a boat. Understanding the nature of the winds is important for skillful navigation. So understanding the nature of these Eight Worldly Winds is skillful for our navigating along the Middle Way.

With these four paired opposites, we can see how they could easily blow us toward one shore or the other. (Remember that one shore is over-indulgence, the other self-denial. We are through our meditation practice, maintaining our course on the river, finding the rich nourishing infinite river that courses through our being.)

First there is the wind of pleasure. We experience pleasure and if we are skillful we accept it for what it is, appreciate it as one of the gifts of life, and let it go when it passes. As if a butterfly briefly alighted on our outstretched palms, we hold the pleasure in an open embrace, neither crushing it nor shooing it away.

But the World Wind of pleasure can blow us off course and leave us stuck aground on the shore of self-indulgence. How does this happen? Maybe the first thing we do is wonder why we don’t give ourselves this pleasure more often? And then we start planning just how we will do that, or beating ourselves up for never doing it. Thus we have fallen out of the moment and into the suffering on one shore or the other.

We can easily get habituated to pleasure, begin to feel that we deserve it, then can’t possibly live without it. Once we’ve slept on luxury sheets, maybe we say we’ll never go back to 200 thread count again! Thus we tighten the limits of our experience more and more, the borders of what we are willing to tolerate.

So what is skillful here? Pleasure comes, we are in the moment with the pleasure, appreciative, and then the pleasure passes and we are ready for whatever happens next. But even if we have missed the opportunity to have that straight-forward a response, we can, whenever we realize where we have gotten lost, come back again to the river, to the awareness of the present, with compassion for ourselves. We can also use our skillful questioning to explore our assumptions, thoughts and feelings that we notice arising. “Is this true? How do I know this is true?”

Pleasure’s counterpart is the wind of pain. Which shore does it blow us toward? Pain can feel deserved and thus blow us toward extremes of self-denial or we can fight to mask the pain with seeking the shore of self-indulgence, hiding out in that bottle, that pill, that comfort food or that mind-numbing activity.

As we practice, we learn that we can stay with the experience of pain and notice how what we believed to be one giant sensation is really a symphony of smaller sensations arising and falling away. This level of noticing makes it possible to be present, to let go of our thoughts that compound the pain, the ones that say ‘Oh no, not this pain again!’ or ‘How long will this last? I can’t stand it if it goes on like this forever!’ Thus staying present with it, we discover the joyful aspect of impermanence because we see that the sensation changes from moment to moment if we are being aware.

Someone says something devastating to us and we feel pain. Perhaps it blows us way off course, but once we are able to be present with the pain, we can use compassion to bring us back to the river. First compassion for ourselves as we hold ourselves in tenderness as we would a child who is in pain.Then we extend compassion to the other person, because in order for them to to inflict pain on someone, they must be operating out of fear and be in pain themselves. That fear has made them either mindless so they are unaware of the power of their words to harm, or it has made them feel they need to wield cruelty as a protective mechanism. Being able to find compassion for them softens the blow of our own experience. We understand that it is not all about us, any more than the wind is purposely trying to topple us.

Then skillful questioning is needed. We can certainly look to what role we may have played in provoking the hurt. We hear our thoughts and we can ask if they are true, without feeling the need to defend them. We can also question whether it is healthy for us to be near this person. Perhaps we are in a vulnerable state and need to put our own well-being as a priority. Compassion is not meant to enable other people to treat us badly. So there is a level of wise discernment necessary, and being fully in the moment, ‘on the river,’ helps us to see more clearly than when we are stuck deep inland, wandering lost.

Next there are the paired winds of gain and loss. When we gain something in life, does it throw us off course, like a wind pushing us to one shore or the other? Think of the lottery winner who goes on a spending spree of indulgence. But again, gain could cause one to feel uncomfortable, as if we don’t deserve what we’ve received, and cause us to go to excessive self-denial. I think of when I ‘gain’ a batch of cookies I have baked. For reasons I am still exploring for myself, I just can’t rest comfortably until they are all gone. For now, I don’t bake. If I want a cookie I go buy one cookie. This is sad because of course homemade cookies fresh from the oven are so much better than store-bought. But if I feel this way about cookies, I can imagine how a recipient of a great windfall might feel the same: that this money, ‘undeserved,’ must be squandered. That quality of undeserving is best explored from the vantage point of the river, the breath, the present moment, with compassion and a willingness to question in.

Gain’s counterpart is the wind of loss. Loss happens to us all. Loved ones die. We lose a relationship, a job, an ability, a home. And where does this wind blow us? Do we seek the shores of self-denial, blaming ourselves for the loss, beating ourselves up, denying ourselves comfort? Or do we seek mindless pleasures, addictions, something that can at least temporarily mute the loss through oblivion?
Again, once we are conscious enough to remember the river, we are back on it. We can be instantly present, anchored in physical sensation, feeling this moment in all its fullness.

The winds of praise and blame blow and what happens? Does praise roll off like water on a duck’s back but blame sink in deeply? Or does praise give us a big head so we get lost in self-indulgent thinking, hearing echos of the praise in our thoughts, becoming addicted to recreating conditions for more praise to come? Having done volunteer stints of teaching art to children, I know that comments, even praise, can throw a little (or big!) artist off track during the process of creation. The desire to please the teacher or the parent or the friend starts to change the simple joy of creation into a goal-oriented process, and the artist loses their way. This is true in any area where we are hoping to simply live our own lives as authentically as possible, to be the most honest expression of the gift of life in this form, as it has been given us. But if our parents have different ideas of what is a proper career for us, we may be thrown off course for years, maybe for our whole life, because we want to please them, we crave their praise and approval.

Conversely, rather than seeking praise, we can be so uncomfortable with praise that it can send us into self-denial, reminding ourselves of all the ways that the praise is undeserved.

And then there is blame, the opposite of praise. How to we relate to it? Are we able to stay present with the experience? Can we breathe and not feel under attack, as if our life was at stake? If the blame is justified, can we take it in as useful information, make the necessary apologies and amends, make note to self not to do that again, to be more mindful and wise in our behavior? Or do we race into mindlessness, on one shore or the other, seeking the oblivion of compensatory pleasure or the deserved pain of a bed of hot coals?  How does our reaction change when the blaming is unjust?  Say you get an email from the library that a book is overdue, a book that you returned weeks ago. What is your reaction? Do you simply call or go to the library and ask them to check the shelves, or do you go to some dark internal ranting place, expressing outrage at the ‘accusation?’ Which is more skillful? More mindful? More effective?

The last pair of opposite Worldly Winds is fame and ill-repute. Most of us feel this is not something that concerns us. We are neither famous nor infamous, so we can just let this one go. But let’s see it on a more human scale. We all have a reputation for certain qualities in our community of neighbors, family, friends and coworkers. Are we known for being trustworthy, dependable, compassionate, etc. or have we got a rep for being always late, or not to be trusted to follow through on what we promise? And how do we relate to this reputation, whatever it is? Do we go mindless, getting lost in believing ourselves to ‘be’ this reputation, thus hang on tight to our labels, even if they seem bad to others, for without them, who would we be? Is our behavior blown by the wind of our reputation? Do we modify our behavior in order to be seen in a certain way? ‘What would the neighbors think?’ is a typical expression of this being blown by the wind of fame or ill-repute.

And yet of course we live in communities. Hopefully we can be present and compassionate enough to say and do what is wisest for ourselves and those in our community. Both through awareness practice and through Wise Intention we live mindful of our impact on the whole web of life, knowing that we do not live in isolation. Through the practice of meditation, generosity arises, as do other virtues. This is a natural part of the releasing of the tightness of operating out of fear. If we are practicing being in the moment, we will be less likely to live in a way that is adversely affected by these Worldly Winds.

Wind could be thought of as an element of communication, the media, the way information travels on the airwaves, sometimes emitting a lot of hot air. We are often buffeted to one shore or the other by the news we receive and our reactivity to it; the face-to-face comments, emails, phone calls; radio, internet or television news; texts and twitters we receive and our reactivity to those as well. Notice how the next piece of news you read or hear affects you. What emotions arise? What defenses? It may help us to think of these received words as one of the Worldly Winds, capable of blowing us toward one shore or the other. With regular meditation practice, we develop this ability to stay or easily return to the center of the river, the calm center of our being. Meditation doesn’t make us impervious to anything, but it does help us to recognize where center is and how to get there.

Sometimes these winds are hurricanes, tornadoes or typhoons. It is not surprising that we then find ourselves deep inland on one shore or the other. Perhaps we have been unconscious for a time, but whenever we do become conscious, we are able to remember the river. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, who after being misguided to follow the yellow brick road discovered that by simply clicking her shoes she could return home, we can ‘click’ our paired intentions to anchor into physical sensation to bring ourselves into the present moment, and to be compassionate with ourselves so as not drag ourselves further inland. And just like that we are back on the river, back in the center of our being in this moment, whatever this moment holds. And when we are truly in it, not caught up in planning the future, regretting the past or worrying about something beyond our present control, we find that this moment is maybe not so bad, maybe even absolutely stunningly alive, rich, multi-layered; and we find ourselves feeling an incredible gratitude for the unique fleeting gift of this moment.