Our heart, when it’s at normalcy, is like rainwater. It’s clean water, clear, pure, and normal. If we put green coloring in the water, yellow coloring in the water, the color of the water turns to green, turns to yellow.

The same with our mind: When it meets with an object it likes, it’s happy. When it meets with an object it doesn’t like, it gets murky and uncomfortable — just like water that turns green when you add green coloring to it, or yellow when you add yellow coloring. It keeps on changing its color.

“…The Dhamma is just like this, talking in similes, because the Dhamma doesn’t have anything. It isn’t round, doesn’t have any corners. There’s no way to get acquainted with it except through comparisons like this. If you understand this, you understand the Dhamma.

“Don’t think that the Dhamma lies far away from you. It lies right with you; it’s about you. Take a look. One minute happy, the next minute sad, satisfied, then angry at this person, hating that person: It’s all Dhamma…”

~by Ajahn Chah, translated from the Thai by Thanissaro Bhikkhu