September 26, 2026

Let The Waves Settle

Rest in natural great peace this exhausted mind, beaten helpless by karma and neurotic thought, like the relentless fury of the pounding waves in the infinite ocean of samsara.

Longchenpa was a fourteenth-century Tibetan Dzogchen master who composed this verse while living in remote mountain retreats above the Kathmandu Valley, having fled the political turmoil of central Tibet. Here he speaks directly to a mind worn out by the endless pull of karma and compulsive thought, comparing it to waves battered by an ocean storm. His instruction is not to fight the waves or force them still, but simply to rest, letting the churning settle on its own. In the Dzogchen view, stillness is not something manufactured through effort; it is the natural clarity already present once habitual thinking is no longer fed. Practitioners return to this resting again and again in meditation, trusting that insight and right action only become visible once the water has stopped moving.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Stillness →