‘Be like water’ is one of those images which keeps on giving.
Starting with the visual image of water, high in the mountains, a trickle here and there, forming its way as it moves downhill, filling holes and depressions in the ground with just enough water to fill to the brim. It never over-reaches itself in an attempt to fill higher than the brim. It fills to capacity and then overflows to continue on its way.
Reaching a steep ravine, it picks up speed and, in the process, stirs up debris, silt and muck which it carries with it. It meets the edge of a cliff and, without pause, becomes a waterfall. The pool below catches the water - catches itself - and holds it briefly as it seeks the lower ground. It becomes a river, complete with shaded banks, eddies and stagnant pools. Perhaps there are times and places where it goes underground, follows wayward paths before resurfacing.
Every creature and living thing, which is close at hand, benefits from the movement of water. Among its virtues is the ability to use any shape for its purpose and to do so while never losing its essential nature. It will wear away rock by furious energy or steady drip. Nothing stands in its way for too long.
Water uses any form, any container but under certain conditions – rain, snow, mist, ice and steam – it becomes its own container.
It’s rare in a sunburnt country to get snow but we had a gentle fall a few weeks ago. It settled overnight with no breeze to disturb the layering on twig and branch. It lay across every surface, inches thick. It became its own container. It struck me, in the morning light as wonderful indeed.
Visual images aside, the idea of being like water and being true to the essential nature I become, by virtue of aligning myself with what is right, has sustained and nourished me through difficulty after difficulty, obstacles and deep pits, depressions, ravine and precipice.....life itself and I don’t mean the emotional life although the daily ups and downs have their place.
How this idea of being like water translates into real life – for me – if I am the water, involves a certain amount of purification if that water is to be of use. I don’t mean aiming for some ‘holy holy’ but putting the greater good first within my own life..... where the responsibilities are obvious.
‘Do the right thing’ ‘Do no harm,’ - all aspects of the golden rule which don’t mention that this involves the going of the extra mile and doing so as a given.
In the course of my life – no doubt like yours – I’ve experienced how often waiting is an integral part of a life situation. Waiting, in some degree of comfort or jagged difficulty – either way, the situation cannot be readily changed but must be endured.
Waiting doesn’t imply passivity. If it takes time for the pool to fill up, the obstacle to be overcome, then skills can still be developed. If the pool is an abyss then endurance is needed and, when this has been true for me, it’s enough to survive - helping others becomes difficult if not impossible.
Everything changes … eventually.
If the golden rule isn’t followed the water still flows, a river carves its course for every life. Obstacles and the like are true for all so it’s the quality of the water which either nourishes or doesn’t. What distinguishes the water of one life from another.
In that I have this to work with. The effect of love and hate. In my life, hate bears bitter fruit as do the distant cousins, resentment and blame. Not saying anything new or particularly profound – just that love works – in every sense of the word. It doesn’t have to be anything more conceived of than mild affection and a love of the good.
The landscape through which the water runs crosses arid plains and desolate plateaus - as is so in life. Landscapes not conducive to life appear and there is no choice but to move through it, slow paced or otherwise, and move on. Perhaps the land becomes a marsh with stagnant pools appearing. The marsh gives way, the water moves freely, the debris, silt and muck have fallen away.
At some place there is the sea, the ocean and the joining together and, with water, the cycle repeats.