A dear friend who runs the Center for Sacred Psychology down in Florida is always finding fabulous quotes to remind us all of the wisdom that is available, if we just stopped for a moment to gather it in. Our paths crossed many years ago in Crestone at The Way of Nature Sacred Land Preserve where we were both doing a Sacred Passage. He was the lucky one receiving the energetic gift of a close encounter with a Mountain Lion.

This gift of words came to me when my friend, Dr. Doug, tagged a photo of our teacher, John P. Milton, sitting with Kali.

A ripened continuous insight gives us the steadiness and courage of a lion’s gaze.

Padmasambhava said that when a stick is thrown to a dog, the dog will chase the stick. When you throw a stick to a lion, the lion will chase you. The lion gazes steadily at the source, the thrower. A dog’s gaze follows the object, the stick. Similarly, our source of experience is our own mind. … An emotion, like anger, represents the stick.

The source hurling that emotion is our mind. It is the mind that projects. … a mind functioning beyond the jumbling of discursive emotions develops a steady and awake inner gaze, piercing the welter of thoughts.

Sherab, P. & Dogyal, T. (1998). The Lion’s Gaze.

I must admit,”piercing the welter of thoughts” – sent me scurrying to the dictionary! I love that phrase and wanted to be sure I had the proper understanding. To be tossed in a jumbled mess of confusion, like being swept along on the high seas in the midst of a storm! Welter! A great word to add to anyone’s vocabulary! The perfect description of the all too often muddled human mind, wrapped up in one word.

I’ll be pondering this one for a while.

Onward with courage!