waters of life
Posted by thoughtnotstatic on 7 February 2008
My friend Kelvy posted a great quote about dealing with pain and suffering. The gist of the quote is that suffering is like a handful of salt; when you put that salt in a glass of water, the water taste bitter, but put that same salt into a lake and the water still taste refreshing. Thus, when suffering, expand your context, your awareness and sense of being, to that of a lake, rather than a glass.
After reading the quote, I got to thinking about emotions of joy and happiness - the honey of life, if you will. To better taste this honey, might we want to revert to the glass, shrinking our awareness to the singular moment at hand, and thus be able to savor the sweetness, fleeting though it may be.
And when should we become a stream? There are times when it might be best to be narrow and shallow enough notice the nuances of salt, honey and all the other flavors life offers, yet with enough current that these feelings flow through us and then pass on, making space for what’s to come.
7 February 2008 at 11:41 pm
how stirring - i love this notion. so easy to get bound in emotion, even as a lake, with parameters. i hold an image from childhood of a dam near my home <> that literally held in reservoir water near my dad’s house and fed into the nearby Croton river, in back of my mom’s house. the town (i guess?) managed the flow-through to balance the needs for water. (the reservoir is part of the NYC water system.) at times, a series of rectangular passageways were opened in the dammed and water would come rushing out, adding to the river’s volume. can’t help but wonder about the proportions of water, contained or free (though it’s all kind of contained by gravity…) in relation to the pain in the world. but not to be a downer. we have a lot of ocean…
7 February 2008 at 11:41 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Croton_Dam