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"The Water, not the Waves" — by Connie Habash
I have been thinking of the difference between water
and the waves on it. Rising,
water's still water, falling back,
it is water, will you give me a hint
how to tell them apart?
Because someone has made up the word
"wave", do I have to distinguish it from water?
~ Kabir
The metaphor of water has been used in many spiritual traditions throughout history to convey to us our true nature, our spiritual self. I was reflecting on this one night while meditating. I had been watching my thoughts, as usual, and was quite annoyed that night with the fact that they just kept coming, relentlessly. I didn't like thinking that I had so many thoughts, and felt helpless to do anything about it. Aren't they supposed to slow down, or become fewer, at some point? And what does that mean about me, if I can't get them to do that? Am I not making any progress on my spiritual path?
I knew that it wasn't necessarily true that I wasn't getting anywhere, but even still, I didn't like the thoughts I was having. Then I recalled this image of the ocean. The waves were rising and falling, but deep underneath the ocean was still. Was the ocean the waves? No, surely the ocean was much more vast and deep than the waves on top of it. The waves arose out of the ocean, but they weren't the ocean. And this brought me a new understanding of my thoughts.
How much our thoughts are like those waves! Sometimes, the sea is fairly calm, and there's just a lapping of the water on the shore, yet no matter how calm, the lapping is constant! Even when our minds are relaxed, we can notice that thoughts continue to drift through. Yet, if we can maintain calm and look beneath those ripples on the surface, we can detect the deeper peacefulness beneath. The inner peacefulness, the realm of Spirit - which is always there, right under the surface.
When the sea is stormy, though, watch out! How terrifying that same pleasant water can be, and powerful, too. When our thoughts are crashing with rage, fear, anxiety, despair, it seems as if we'll be washed out to sea, or drowned in them. Yet the same calm water is still there, although harder to get to. How do we get to it? As Shereen Motarjemi wrote for my newsletter a few months back, we have to dive. We have to go deeper, into the feeling, and then underneath it - beyond it, to the water that it arises out of. What makes the ocean rough and stormy? It's always something outside itself - a hurricane raging above it, or an earthquake on the ocean floor. Our life is sometimes like that. Our foundation gets a bit shaken by current events, our feelings get hurt by a friend, or our body becomes a little under the weather. Then the thoughts - and feelings - react, and the space of the mind becomes like a maelstrom.
When times like these arise in our mind, it's time to dive deeper. Embrace the feeling, and then dive down to the place the feeling arises out of. Beyond the feeling, into the still water beneath. And realize that your true nature is not the waves on the surface, but water - the essential element to all life, something greater than just a wave of thought, and even greater than the ocean itself. You aren't those thoughts - they simply arise in response to the events of storms, earthquakes, and the tides of life. From this greater place within, you can watch the waves on the surface with a curiosity and detachment, rather than allowing yourself to become disturbed by the thoughts or emotions. From this place of the Divine, you can know that, no matter what the thought or feeling is, you are not limited by it - you are as vast as the ocean.
Copyright 2001 by Constance L. Habash