Ripples in the Mirror of Mind (Blog)

A stone... falls into a still pond.
Ripples radiate outward.
To the eye, it seems as though the water itself is moving.
But in truth, the water is not traveling...
It is energy, incarnated into a form.
Each ripple assumes the shape of the forces
that give rise to its transitory appearance,
but the water remains, in its depths, unmoved.

So too does a thought appear in the mind.
So too does a feeling rise, unbidden,
and carry with it the illusion of movement,
of self, of distance, of time.

We chase the ripple and forget the water.
We name the motion and forget the stillness.
We believe the thought is ours,
when it is only energy,
momentarily expressing itself through the field of awareness.

But then -- by grace, or by weariness, or by wonder --
we begin to question:
What if the mind is not the thinker,
but the pond through which thought moves?

And deeper still:
What part of me believes it is other than the ripple,
other than this brief dance of light and sound,
of fear or joy, of memory or longing?

If the ripple is the shape energy takes,
then no ripple is apart from the water it passes through.
If thought is the form of energy
as it passes through consciousness,
then no thought is apart from that consciousness.

Stillness is not the opposite of motion.
It is its ground.
Awareness is not separate from the content it holds.
It is its womb.

So the work of being
is not to still the pond,
nor to silence the wave.
It is to be the whole of oneself.

It is to see thought arise and know:
“This too is me --
but not all of me.”

To see reaction take shape, and realize
anything that resists its form, how it moves,
is apart from the truth of that movement.

It is to feel the echo of a ripple long past
and know that nothing was ever lost,
only misunderstood.

And then, in a moment unmarked by time,
by grace, discover that you are not
just the ripple,
nor just the water...

...But the Energy,
the Space,
and the Silence
that reveals them as one.