Irma

Hurricane Irma hit the US last weekend. Before that, it created much destruction in the Caribbean islands. It was a category 5 storm with sustained winds of more than 185 miles per hour for the longest time in the history of storms, as per experts. It also held it's strength for a long period of time. I had never followed the path of a storm before but this one intrigued me and so I did.

What was most interesting was how the storm, as it travelled across the Caribbean into the US, almost felt like a living thing. At least for me it did. It had a path and boy did it travel that with persistent intention. It made me wonder what makes a hurricane and how does it keep to a path and how does is sustain it's strength. The science behind was fascinating. A hurricane required certain conditions for it to become one. Air pressure, water temperature, currents, presence of water and or land are some of it. At least that's what I picked up. It was the warm waters of the Atlantic and pressure systems that created Irma. Had it hit land then the hurricane would have lost it's power. The eye keeps it power as it travels over warm waters and when it hit the land it looses power. This is why the US didn't have the amount of devastation they were expecting. It hit Cuba the night before and the eye of the storm lost it's power and was not able to gather it's strength before making landfall in the US. But until then the eye kept creating an recreating itself many times over the course of it's path.

To me the hurricane reminded me of beings. Humans and otherwise.

Buddhist don't believe in a self or a soul or a permanent entity that moves from one life form to another. It is the causes and conditions that shape how and what and when things move. For example, for me to be born as a human being, there were certain causes and conditions present. Without those there wouldn't have been "me" as you and I know it to be. It is also the causes and conditions that sustain me as I move along in my life. Causes and conditions are within and without. Internally, my thoughts, actions and words shape and guide my life's path and externally people I live with, friends, places I live in and many more conditions also keep modifying that path. Absence of one or more conditions can alter "me" and "my life" considerably.

It made me realize, in some ways, how little control we have of me and my life. Just like Irma hitting land, I could get hit by a car and die. I mean it just made me think how vulnerable we are and how much we are shaped by conditions. But we may not even know what they are, because there are so many of them. We don't have the capacity to notice all of them. We move and think so fast that most of these conditions take effect and become the next round of causes in a matter of seconds, perhaps even milliseconds. I was simply fascinated.

It also make me think how much effort and a keen sense of awareness we must cultivate in order to make any change to our direction in life. Not only it's enough to change the external conditions but also it's imperative we change our internal conditions, mostly our thoughts. Our thought has much power but recognizing the thought and it's color and shade and gradient takes much effort. Without that we can be tossed around quite a bit within and without. We will keep inventing and reinventing ourselves either as humans or other beings in different realms.

Somehow there has to be the nullifying of causes and conditions in order for this continuum to come to an end like Irma did by Monday. To me it made me realize that Nibbana is a possibility. At least the science of it :))