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Water
Dark Ocean

In the beginning

the earth was without form and void,

and darkness was upon the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God

moved upon the face of the waters.

Genesis 1:2

Waterfall in nature

The secret source is clear and transparent

[yet] her branches are dark and flow everywhere.

-- The Song of Difference and Unity

8th century Shitou Xiqian (700-790). This line is from the poem Sandokai, of the Soto school of Zen, chanted daily in temples throughout the world.

Beautiful Sunset

If you delve deeply enough,

at a certain moment you reach a vein

that courses underneath everything.

​​

If you go deep enough,

you arrive at that stream;

you recognize it everywhere.

​

— Bieke Vandekerckhove,

The Taste of Silence

Full Moon

Thirst drove me down to the water

where I drank the moon’s reflection…

 — Rumi

Splash

Deep calls to deep
in the roar of your waterfalls;

all your waves and breakers

have swept over me.

-- Psalm 42:7

What Any Lover Learns

 

River does not run.

River presses its heavy silver self

Down into stone, and stone refuses.

 

What runs,

Swirling and leaping into sun, is stone’s

Refusal of the river, not the river.

  -- Archibald Macleish

Ladybug Journey

Don't give me the whole truth, 
don't give me the sea for my thirst, 
don't give me the sky when I ask for light, 


but give me a glint,

                        a dewy wisp,

                                       a mote 


as the birds bear water-drops from their bathing 
and the wind a grain of salt.
-- Olaf H. Hauge

Mole, drinking from the vast river, doesn’t drink beyond a full belly.
-- Chuang Tzu, by Christopher Tricker

All streams flow to the sea 

because it is lower than they are. 

​

Humility gives it its power.

​

-- Tao te Ching 66 (Stephen Mitchell)

The constant practice of the Master is

humility.

He doesn’t glitter like a jewel,

but let’s himself be shaped by the Tao,

as rugged and common as a stone.

​

--Tao te Ching 39 (Stephen Mitchell)

Jan-88-The-Old-Age-of-an-Eagle-is-Better-than-the-Youth-of-a-Sparrow-copy.jpg

Lauren Worsley, artist

The Old Age of a Eagle is better than the Youth of a Sparrow (2008)

Like a stone at the bottom of a river bed,

an old woman may do nothing

except stay still and hold her ground,

​

but the river has to take her into account

and alter its flow because of her…

​

Character brings particular qualities

to every scene,

adds intricacy and depth

​

— James Hillman, The Force

of Character and Lasting Life

Waterfalls

​My ministry is like water —

it flows to fill the empty places,

and has no shape of its own. 

-- Sarah

Gold Fish in Water
Hands clap.
Frightened, birds fly away.
Koi search for food.
A servant brings tea.

Inscription at Buddhist Temple at Nara Park, Japan near Sarusawa Pond. One interpretation is a single action (a hand clap) may trigger many different events that seem unrelated to an unaware person. But to the fully conscious observer, all these things are connected. Here, at the sound of the clap, the birds are startled, the koi fish assume they are about to be fed, and the servant responds to being summoned.

Zen pretty much comes down to three things:

everything changes;

everything is connected;

pay attention.

-- Jane Hirshfield

River Rapids

In the year 2000, the elders of the Hopi Nation

offered a prophecy about the coming millennium.  

The Hopi elders are considered the earth protectors,

the ones who are responsible for the health of our planet.​

The advice of the Hopi elders was:

We are now in a fast-flowing river.

Many of us will be afraid

and will try to cling to the shore.

Those who cling to the shore

will suffer greatly. 

​

Let go of the shore and push off

into the middle of the river.

Keep your eyes open

and your head above water.

See who is there with you

and reach out.

Come.

Reach out your hand.

Some rivers we must cross together.

-- Pinnika the Slave

When two great forces oppose each other, the victory will go

to the one that knows how to yield. -- Tao te Ching 69 (Stephen Mitchell)

Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. 

Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. 

-- Tao te Ching 78 (Stephen Mitchell)

The restful mind is the mirror of the Universe. — Chuang Tzu
A disturbance in a shallow pool causes major turbulence;
the same disturbance in a deep reservoir causes only modest ripples. 

-- rabbi david a.cooper
An old pond.
A frog jumps in.
Splash! (silence again)

-- Basho

Most famous haiku of all time, on the ephemerality of life

H2O

Do you have the patience to wait 

till your mud settles and the water is clear? 

​

​Can you remain unmoving 

till the right action arises by itself? 

​

-- Tao te Ching 15 (Stephen Mitchell)

​What is dense and muddy here
is clear and clean there, in God.


Imagine that you were to pour clear water
Into a clean basin and, still as still can be,
look into that water down to the bottom.


It’s shining clarity and absence of opacity,
would be evident from above to below.


It is just so with human beings...

 

                            -- Meister Eckhart

                (Sweeney/Burrows translation)

​

Calm Waters

Stillness is what creates Love. Movement is what creates Life. To be still, yet moving, that is everything. — Do Hyun Choe

Brown Wooden Surface
Zen Garden

A man is crossing a river in a boat

when he sees an empty boat

approaching on a collision course.

Even though he’s a hot-tempered fellow,

this doesn’t make him angry.

 

But now, he sees there is someone in the boat,

so he calls out to them to alter their course.

When this first call isn’t heeded, he calls out again.

And when this call isn’t heeded,

he calls out a third time

and throws in a torrent of abuse.

 Before, he wasn’t angry.

But now he is.

 

Before, the other boat was empty.

But now there’s someone in it.

​

When you see

that other people are empty boats,

even if

you’re a hot-tempered person

you’ll never be angry.

​

-- from the writings of Chuang Tzu,

translated by Christopher Tricker,

The Usefulness of a Useless Philosophy

A long tail boat on the island
Swimming in Forest River

Beneath everything we say, 

and within each note of the reed flute, 

lies a nostalgia for the river bed.

​

Language and music are possible

only because we’re empty, hollow,

and separated from the source.

​

All language is a longing for home.

​

— Rumi

​

… One river flows toward you.

Another away.

​

In the end,

you will be the one

to carry yourself

home.

-- Isidasi (Buddhist nun)

Ocean
Enlightenment for a wave is the moment the wave realizes that it is water.
At that moment, all fear of death disappears.    -- Thich Nhat Hanh

Water is water,
no matter what it’s shape or form,


the solidity of ice imagines itself
to be its edges and density;


Melting, it remembers.
Evaporating, it ascends.


 
  — Stephen Levine

Foggy Mountains_edited.jpg
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