To create a feeling of vast nothingness is not particularly attractive a place for me. I have found the place where good meets evil meets light meets darkness meets time meets stillness and found it wanting. Enlightened beings come in several varieties, some kind and cautious and quiet, others not so genteel.

It is like the elements. At least a bit. Which causes more growth, fire or water? Is destruction not indeed a necessary precursor to creation? Is change not often, on its surface, not so pleasant and ordered? The greatest teachers did not lead lives of solitude, but were elements of vast and sweeping change. Out with the old, before ringing in the new.

And so, it seems, my lessons lately, have been leading me to be an agent of change, rather than a pillar of quiet strength. My students are tall and strong and unmovable. The oak trees move only by very stiff and intense winds. But the fire can do what neither water nor wind can do. The fire can destroy, if only for a moment, in preparation of the new and glorious growth.