While meditating recently I observed how fragile is my mind’s stability and how easily it is distracted, how little it needs to produce mountains of thoughts and images. It’s just like fireworks, a little spark ignites a myriad of flashes and booms.

I sit. I hear a sound. My mind immediately recognizes it, names it in a flash so fast I can’t grasp it yet alone prevent it – it’s a car door being slammed. Rapidly, sets of images appear, various situations in which I slammed a car door. Or seen a door slammed. Or saw it in a movie. Then the mind ticks and stops on a memory. Now the thoughts tree is almost developed, I recall a situation, a smell, a feeling. But, the breathing continues and I go back to it. The image slowly dissipates, the mind becomes clear again.

Then, another sound. Comes from above. I think a few years ago I wouldn’t recognize it, but now I know – it’s a sound a cat’s feet make when he jumps on the floor from a table or something. My mind, as previously, identifies it, names, defines the situation – it’s one of the cats of the neighbors that live above. They have three of them. I recall seeing the neighbor recently with a toddler when we met in the lift. I start to wonder… but then, the breathing continues. I return to it. The image dissipates just like the previous.

But wait, there is no sound, nothing happens but my mind starts to produce some images again. This time these are some dreamy, non-concrete plans. They are so vivid, strong, I sink in them, I’m now a thousand miles away from my cushion. And, again, the breath sweeps mind. Thought tree dissipates. Again and again. The emptiness turns into images then they return back to it.

This is sitting as I experience it now.