When everything changes and remains the same

You’ve probably heard the old Zen saying “Before waking up, chop wood and carry water. After waking up, chop wood and carry water.” Sounds cute, but what the heck does it really mean? At least I had no idea before the events of the past few weeks.

I’ve been on a wonderful journey since Christmas, like the death of everything I knew and believed in, which I sacredly wished for in a couple of campfire ceremonies before I moved here to Parkano a good four years ago. That the old story of Rahikainen would end to give space for everything unknown, i.e. the entire universe, to be born in my being. This is what I once deeply wished for and now it’s happening.

Some twenty years ago I learned to remove clouds from the sky with the power of my thoughts. I was able to choose one particular reasonably sized cloud and, when I wanted to, I made it disappear. Now I’m starting to understand and experience that I am the sky, on which clouds occasionally appear. Clouds were never a problem – the one who thought he was a cloud, was. Clouds – small and large, mighty and hazy – are all just a small play of the sky in its eternal grandeur. Rahikainen was too.

All this has come to light in the following experiences. One day, as I left my house walking towards the lunch at Brankkari restaurant, I found myself stepping into a completely blissful and pure state. It brought out the following self-describing sentence: I am a field of accepted life, walking in the form of a human being. It made me cry and laugh and fully enjoy every step on the streets of the wonderful city of Parkano. I was the field of Life present in this living being.

The next day, as I set off again towards Brankkari, a great and mighty feeling of joy and laughter arose in me, which passed through me into the landscape of Parkano. It felt as if I had walked on top of the world, not above it but in the middle of it all. I was in the midst of a dazzling beauty, as I once was as a young man walking along a narrow path in the Swiss Alps that ran along a mountain ridge, with stunning views of the valleys below on both sides. I was in the middle of everything, one with everything, and I laughed all the way to Brankkari.

Everything has changed, because nothing raises clouds of worry in my mind anymore. And nothing has changed, because I live the same simple life as before, but without a trace of worry. I breathe, do my work, eat, sleep, and occasionally chop some wood. That too is possible.