All reactive feelings are like waves. Anger comes in a wave. Desire comes in a wave. We feel a wave of envy. A wave of sorrow washes over us. If we are aware that they are reactions and just waves, they subside again safely and do not spill over the brim of our internal emotional world and become a reactive action in the external physical world.
Sometimes when wave after wave comes, the feeling settles down to a high steady level, like a flooded land. Desire purifying into love is such a feeling. Anger burning permanently as hatred is such a feeling. Sorrow solidifying into grief is also such a feeling. Actions arise continually out of this flood almost without control and become part of our nature.
The wise one treats the wave as a wave. He does not allow them to become part of his nature. Except for Love (which is the sea itself), he guards against any other basis of spontaneous action.
