Thoughts-prey. Thoughts-predators. Mind-jungle. Mind-desert. Let’s meditate: is our mind like a desert or maybe like a jungle? Let’s meditate a bit differently: is our mind a desert or maybe a jungle? But first let us ponder the word like. Like changes everything. If a mind is like a desert, it is not a desert, it can be or not be a desert, it can be a jungle which imitates a desert. If a mind is like a jungle, it is not a jungle, it can be or not be a jungle, it can be a desert which only pretends to be a jungle. You will ask: how can a desert imitate a jungle? is it possible that a jungle pretends to be a desert? A desert seems to differ so much from a jungle, like a day from a night, and has anybody ever seen a night imitate a day? Of course. It’s enough to switch on a lamp. Has anybody ever seen a day imitate a night? Certainly. It’s enough to draw curtains tightly, or enter a cave or dungeon or at least a cellar. The lack of like makes the opposition sharp. It seems so. And if not, such an opposition is with no doubt less blurred, more clear. More either-or. There are many examples of such oppositions: hell-heaven, day-night, order-chaos, white-black, silence-noise... Whether these oppositions are real or only apparent it’s another problem to be discussed, as well as whether oppositions sharper than a razor, indisputable and undeniable do exist. The oppositions are complementary by nature. The elements of an opposition complement one another. The only-day-world would be but a half-world. The hell has heaven within itself and heaven has hell within itself, like white contains some black and black contains some white. Silence is a zero-noise, and noise is a zero-silence, provided that a perfect silence does exist and there is a noise that contains no quantum of silence. Mind can be a jungle, but can be a desert, too. Sometimes it is a jungle, sometimes it is a desert. A jungle is a kind of a desert. A jungle is a desert of abundance. A desert is a kind of a jungle. A desert is a jungle of lacking. But a desert is a jungle of stones and sand and dirt, too. Like high mountains which are both a desert and a jungle. Like an ocean... There are different jungles and there are different deserts. A thought in a desert doesn’t feel at ease. A thought in a jungle don’t feel at ease, either. Thoughts don’t help a desert to ease its existence. Thoughts don’t help a jungle to ease its existence, either. Nobody and nothing feel at ease with thoughts, with any thoughts. Well, but thoughts do exists. Unfortunately. They have appeared. Once they have appeared and they won’t stop appearing. Such a beautiful desert. Such a beautiful wasteland. Such a beautiful intellectual desolation. Sand. Dirt. Dunes. Gravel. Stones. Rock debris. Bare ground whipped by winds. And suddenly something appears. In spite of everything. Something germinates somewhere. Crawls and creeps. Sneaks in and through. Leaves a print, a trace. Demolishes the beautiful thoughtlessness. Dust and dirt cover the print. Erase it. It seems it suffices, but it does not. Why and what does it come here for? Why and what is it so stubborn for? Why does it want to stay just here? Because it can’t stay somewhere else? Because there is a lot of free space here? Yes, there is a lot of free space that should be conquered and filled. And they keep filling it. Everything would be all right. Living would be really fine and easy and wonderful, if nothing appeared in the other corner of the wasteland. But something new has appeared. Now it’s not as nice as it was. Now the space should be shared. Now pushing-and-pulling has begun. Fighting, struggling, combating. Till the whole desert will be brimful of beasts and demons. Will turn into a jungle where everything whirls and swarms, everything is tangled with everything, where neither ground nor sky can be seen, only this lushgreen, wet, sultry dimness. Can the following conclusion be drawn: a forest is better, an ordinary wood is better, a meadow is better? Is the intermediate state better than the extreme ones? If it is then what makes it better? Each extreme state is but an intermediate state between two intermediate states... But an intermediate state prompts laziness. The intermediate state doesn’t demand great determination. At least it seems so to us and to the intermediate state. Let’s put aside deserts, jungles, woods, meadows, seas, ground and air and whatever else. Each one of them states is good and bad, better and worse. Full of something. Of this or of that. Some thoughts are like trees, others like grass blades, others like moss. Some thoughts are like birds, others like butterflies, others like hyenas. There are thoughts like bacteria, like earth worms, like moles. Like parasites... Oh, again like. There are autotrophic and heterotrophic thoughts... Yes. It looks and sounds much better now. There are thoughts predators and there are thoughts prey. There are thoughts decomposing and degrading everything, so also themselves, and there are thoughts stones which seem to last forever while they erode unnoticeably. This list could be endless. Yes. This is clear. We don’t know which thoughts are what – this is unclear. We don’t know which thoughts are predators, which are prey, which are parasites, which scavengers. This is unclear, but this is not obscure. Thoughts know neither shame, nor decency, nor honour, nor limits – this is obscure and gloomy, very gloomy. Those ones which were flying to the farthest horizons drawing in the sky most beautiful figures would drop down on the ground in a while and transform into hideous worms, although very useful, indeed. A donkey turns into grass it chews, and the grass turns into a donkey. A lion turns into a gazelle, and a gazelle turns into a tiger. You never know what is what, what will become what and when. Oh, what a huge tropical sand storm it is. We meditated. Now the sky is clear and white. Not so clear already. It’s getting cloudy again. <<<