Gate

Our mind has a gate. If we choose to bring in chaos through that gate, our mind becomes chaotic. Thich Nhat Hanh often teaches the concept of watering the seeds that are inside us. We have seeds for all kinds of feelings and whichever seeds we choose to nurture, those will be what grow inside us. What we bring in past our gate waters those seeds. I ask myself, what am I watering in myself?

Our control over what we let past our gate isn’t as easy as the image of the gate might imply to us. I cannot close the gate on all negativity and open it only to what gives me pleasure. Thoughts that I do not want seep in and seem to flood over everything else. I find though that if I keep the gate open, that is keep my heart open to accept what I feel and tell myself that it is okay to feel them, then they sweep out again on their own, out the gate.

Maybe what we need is to always leave the gate slightly open. If we cannot open or close the gate at our will to keep chaos, fear, anxiety, anger, sorrow, or despair from entering us, then being spacious enough to let in what we would rather avoid allows it to leave just as easily as it had entered us. Closing the gate tightly only imprisons inside us what we have let in, which, because it cannot leave, will keep on watering its seeds.