Q. I had an unusual experience recently that I wonder if you could comment on. I had been in a rather busy city for a number of days when suddenly I noticed a significant change in how I was feeling come over me. I suddenly became more present, with a feeling of spaciousness and ease. It was so tangible and not due to any conscious cultivation on my part that I stopped to look around and see what was going on. It was then that it dawned on me that for the previous few minutes I’d been standing next to a waterfall (albeit man made). I can’t help but feel that I accidentally happened on something important, but don’t quite know exactly what.

A. Maybe your experience showed you how close you really are to that which is beyond our normal entrapment of self-perception. In those moments you lost your self and tasted the spaciousness and freedom that is so close to us, yet we rarely experience it. Usually we are looking somewhere for release from this self-confinement, and never realise that we are actually living out of that freedom each and every moment. Maybe your experience of the waterfall brought upon you the quietness of mind that sometimes allows us to glimpse the tranquility of our true nature.