Golden Wind

A student asked Yumen, “When the leaves fall and the trees become bare, what is happening?”

Yumen replied, “The golden wind is revealing itself.”

Case 27, Blue Cliff Record

The fig tree in my backyard is thirsty. For 20 years it has loved this Mediterranean climate. It required no water aside from what it found in the soil and gathered from the water table running underneath its roots. But with the water table at a record low its tendrils look for sustenance in vain. I stepped in and watered the thirsty tree with the garden hose. While standing underneath the fig tree I heard the golden winds of autumn rustling through its withered leaves.

There is something high and lonesome about autumn winds. They signal a death of the expansiveness of summer. The world is starting to close in on itself, folding itself up, pulling itself in with anticipation of winter’s cold. There is a romance and poignancy about this transition. Each season has its unique romance, the freshness of spring, the expansiveness of summer, the letting go of autumn and containment of winter.

Our thoughts are like the leaves of these deciduous trees. Each time we turn away from a thought and return to the present moment during meditation the thought withers and falls off the tree. Yuman’s student asks, what is left when the thought withers and falls out of sight? What remains?  Yuman answers that the golden wind is revealing itself. Something dies so that something golden can be revealed.

We love the sweetness of spring and the openness of summer, what about the closing in of autumn and containment of winter? When we meditate we love the freedom offered by the release of obsessive thoughts but can we embrace the death of our cherished identity that has been held up by these thoughts? If we can, even for a single thought, the golden wind moves through our lives altering everything, if only for a moment.