Swimming in the Ocean

Recently I came across an analogy of the mind that I would love to share.

Our minds are all like deep blue oceans. They are calm and powerful, have almost unlimited potential, and nurture life. Over 99% of the ocean, the mind is calm. Yet as we are conscious swimmers, rarely dive into those calm depths. We are spending most of our time swimming on the surface, with our heads overlooking the waves and the mind below. All we see are the waves in the weather above. We often only pay attention to what we don't have control over. The weather is the external world and the weather is affecting our minds, but only on the surface. There are sunny and calm days and there are rainy and stormy days. We go up and down swimming on the waves. We are the swimmer and the swimmer is our awareness and ego. When the sea is calm the swimmer thinks it will be calm forever and when it is stormy the swimmer thinks it will be a mess forever.
But we have the power to kill the ego and dive deep. Dive deep into the calmness within. We have the need to search for this stillness from time to time. We need to dive down, away from the surface. We are the ocean itself and everything else is just the weather. If we are always in the act of floating on the surface when we are always in motion and activities and don’t take time to find stillness. Life will eventually still us, drown us. And if you aren't prepared it's often not pretty when it does...

You are the ocean. You are not the swimmer on the surface. You are only aware of the swimmer and the surface.