Outside the window, the mountain is heavy with mist, only dark outlines and its peak keep it from disappearing, letting us know it is still there. It is as if the fog has taken the whole world away and me with it. I sit looking out, feeling the weight. Doubt is heavy. Doubt is dark. The question keeps rising, just as the mist from the valley, and it envelopes me: is the path that I'm following, really right for me? Was taking the Precepts the right choice in life? But within all that is heavy and dark, there is lightness. This is living in the opposites. This is where one finds The Way.
The wind rises and the laden white strands are whirled and whisked away to different sides and more of the mountain can be seen and it picks up light from the sun. Again an opening: It is right; it is ALL right. Bright faith rises for a moment, there is certainty, there is a lightness. The sky, the mountain and I open up. The air can be breathed again.
But again the fog may rise from the deep valley or clouds settle in from the sky. As it has the past few days. Everything will seem to be lost from view again. Eyes blind, doubts rising. a thought: remain like the mountain, for it never really disappears. Obscured but solid, I'll learn to sit. Again, it is only the mist and wind that move, not the mountain. Heavy, laden with doubt: pure meditation must be done.
The sun sets, unnoticed in deep grey winter evenings. Night falls. Heavy. Stars appear. Light. Light rises. I sit.
There is Truth in all this.
Pure meditation must be done.
Sit like the mountain, even when the doubts come!

The rest of the time in the Alps was filled with delight, feeling a deeper sense of my practice, feeling more open to That Which is. How wonderful, I have become a bit more like the mountain and less like the wind and mist.