The Ocean Within

“You are not a wave, you are the ocean.”

Chuang Tzu

Whenever in life you feel lost, tossed around by endless storms, drowning, it may be that what is needed is not more action, but stillness and depth.

We are so absorbed by the outside world that if someone speaks of a deep ocean within—quiet, filled with peace and equanimity—we see them as insane.

Yet it is the truth: within each of us lies the same ocean—still, boundless, infinite. From it everything comes, and to it everything returns.

That ocean is not made of water, but of pure light.

More vast than all the seas of the earth, no storm has ever disturbed the stillness of its depths.There is nothing we need to do to find it. It is what we are at the very core of our being. All that is needed is to remember: Truly, this is who I am.

Many seek remedies for the chaos that rages at its surface. Yet only by plunging into its darkness can you taste how far it extends beyond anything you’ve ever imagined.

The more you return to the abyss and drink from its waters, the more knowledge falls away, until you remain entirely naked—as what you are, as what you have always been.

In that nakedness there is no inside and no outside, no good and no bad. You and the ocean are one, and every soul that has ever lived is one with it too.

Then you discover that your true being is so vast it contains all the storms that have ever arisen, and all those that ever will. None of them have truly threatened your imperturbable nature.

The separate self you believed yourself to be is but a passing wave, appearing and vanishing at the surface of the ocean of eternity.

The waves are what you experience. The ocean in its totality is what you are.

Simply remember: whatever flickers in and out of existence is illusion. What is real does not change.

IMF - La Cathedrale Verte, Lausanne 3 September 2025