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Final Words: We can learn to change our unwholesome moods and thoughts by ourselves, without any equipment or expense. Like any skill, it takes time and lots of practice.

28

Water

The Exercise: Open your awareness to water, in all its forms, both inside and outside of your body and dwelling. Become aware of liquidity, in food, drinks, and in your environment.

REMINDING YOURSELF

Post the word “Water” or images of water drops. You can also place small bowls of water in strategic places.

DISCOVERIES

Doing this exercise, we realize that water is everywhere. It is inside us, in saliva, tears, blood, urine, gastric juices, joint fluid, and sexual secretions. We are 70 percent water; without it we would be a small pile of dry cells and salts. Without it we would be dead in a few days. We take water in all day long, in tea and tangerines, in salad greens and soup. It is outside us, in puddles, damp soil, leaves, dew, and windshield wiper fluid. It is above us in clouds. It runs beneath us in the earth in sewers, water pipes, and deep aquifers.

When we open our awareness to water, we realize what a miraculous substance it is. It is transparent but can take on infinite colors. It conforms to any vessel. It is an invisible gas we breathe in and out without even noticing, a transparent fluid we pour down our throats with gratitude, white crystal flakes that cover the ugliness humans can create, or a slippery solid that makes us fearful of walking or driving.

Ordinarily we don’t pay attention to water unless there’s a problem with it—the water is shut off, the toilet overflows, or the road to work is flooded. In developed countries we take clean water for granted. The Buddha, who lived in a hot, unsanitary country 2,550 years ago, spoke of clean water for washing and drinking as one of the greatest of gifts. There is growing concern that our world supply of water will run out. There are still many people in the world without safe drinking water. Can we appreciate this life-sustaining gift, given each day by earth and sky?

A young monk once heated water from the river for his master’s bath. When he tipped a few drops of water left in his wooden bucket out onto the ground, his master scolded him vigorously for his lack of mindfulness. Even a single drop of water could be given to a plant in the garden, thus giving life to the plant, to the monks, to the dharma, or back to the river itself. The monk’s mind was opened. He took the name Tekisui, meaning “one drop,” and went on to become a great master.

DEEPER LESSONS

As we become mindful of water, our mind can take on its flowing quality. Just as water is able to flow without hindrance into different containers, when we cultivate a light, flexible mind, we are able to flow into situations as they arise and change, without energy-sapping resistance.

We enjoy sitting by a river or stream, watching the endlessly changing, constant flow. Can we watch the flow of our life with calm eyes as well, at ease with impermanence, with the endless flow of cause and effect?

When we observe how water moves between its different forms, from solid to liquid to gas, we also learn something about our lives and the truth of impermanence. A collection of elements condenses temporarily into an apparently solid human being, but when the forces holding these elements in balance change (a drop in blood potassium, an irregular heartbeat, a moment’s inattention at the wheel), they begin to separate and dissolve, and are released back into hydrogen, carbon, calcium, oxygen, and a bit of heat.

Water has another quality we can learn from. When muddy water is poured into a glass and allowed to sit undisturbed, eventually the mud settles to the bottom and the water becomes clear again. When our mind is agitated, anxious, or fearful, it is hard to see any solutions to our problems. One aspect of mindfulness is remembering that it is possible to still the mind and let it regain its natural clarity.