If you're up to date with the current season of White Lotus, you will recall the father before the monk, asking what happens after death. Unaware of the man's desire to escape the criminal charges that await him in America, he replies with the lesson about the water droplet - the water drop rises, and as it falls, joins the ocean, the greater consciousness, a return to oneness. It's a breathtaking vision and one that affirms that we are not truly dying, but returning to something greater.
The imagery of the water drop merging into the ocean is used across many Buddhist traditions to explore the nature of the self, impermanence, and enlightenment. Watching the water droplets bounce into being on the screen moved me to tears - it's an idea that endures for me, out on the ocean, particularly in the morning, that liminal space where everything is awakening, yet still half asleep. The sun is just melting away from the horizon, and the moon is sliding along it's trajectory to elsewhere. It's comforting for me, being on the water, in the water, of the water. My father is here - he has entered the eternal and infinite sea. He is the gull overhead, the mist coming off the water as the day warms, the warm autumnal light on the cliffs. There's a sweet and painful joy in this thought - it's both sharp and keen, and soft and enveloping. The water moves through my fingers and I think of myself too as a water drop, practicing at becoming one with the great ocean.
My father is not here in the way he once was - the ego self - but like that drop of water, he has not disappeared - he has simply returned to something greater.
The autumn has brought with it it's soft rains - they contribute to the feeling of being immersed in sky and sea as I float about on my board between sets. These drops take on individual forms - dew, rain, sleet, mist, fog, the droplet that slides down and tickles my nose - but transmutes. They move and slide from one form to the other - they evaporate, form clouds, become rain, join again the ocean, the waves. It's part of a cycle of birth and rebirth, a beautiful cycle, evermoving, constantly changing. How beautiful that he is part of this vast, ever flowing system. I'm inhaling the moisture, breathing it out. My lungs are full of salt air. I'm part of this cycle whilst still fiercely holding onto my earthly form, not yet ready to let go, yet aware that I too will join this cycle some day.
There's a deep, deep peacefulness in all of this - something that some interpretations of the water drop liken to a spiritual awakening. The drop realizes it's true identity as oceanic, not separate. I think it's partly why I constantly crave the ocean - some deep, deep part of me recognizes it as a coming home, connected, part of something infinite rather than infinitely alone. I wonder if my father thought of this too. He was at home in the sea. Did he think - know - he was becoming part of it, with all those final exhalations? That he was returning to something eternal, that he had always loved?
At it's very core, the water drop in the ocean is about many things, all beautifully interconnected - the dissolution of the ego, the interconnected nature of existence, the path to peace. Ultimately, it reminds me that separation is an illusion, an idea of my own making. Perhaps this is what they mean when they say 'he is still here' - not physically, but in the rhythm of the waves, the salt air, the vast and ever changing ocean that he, like I, so deeply loved.
'Death is a happy thing' the monk in White Lotus says. 'like coming home'. This might take Timothy, like most of us, a long time to understand. Perhaps we never truly do, until we slide into the vast ocean when we take our last breath. But there's a lot of comfort in at least musing upon this idea.
With Love,
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Such a thoughtful and beautiful post. I think fear of leaving others behind is the only thing that bothers me about death these days. Then again, I guess they will catch up eventually.
I guess they will. I guess I always think about how to use the time I've got left rather than being scared of dying itself. It'd suck to leave now. I kinda like life.
Cool. I see it that way, as everything that goes away returns. Everything you think you are disappears, and everything you really are remains. Like a playground in the sand, the castles we build will be blown away by the wind, but the sand will remain there.
Leaving is an illusion, so is coming. Both creation and destruction are appearances.
Interesting perspective.
Cheers to you!
Thanks for your lovely comment. Everything is always in flux. It's only when we believe things are permanent that we get upset.
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