Water Meditation

Civilization is recent and fleeting. Nature ― as far as we know ― is eternal. Water is fluid, clear, and shapeless.

Emerson used flowing water imagery and metaphors for water in his essays and poems. In the essay Nature, published in 1836, Emerson asks,

Who looks upon a river in a meditative hour and is not reminded of the flux of all things?

Water represents fluidity, transcendence, and spiritual insight. Water reminds us of the fickle and fleeting nature of how we perceive time.

Emerson encouraged independent thinking and imagination over convention. He reveled in the spiritual nature of natural phenomena.

Hyalite Creek

Appreciation for natural phenomena like the force of flowing water, the mechanics of an avalanche, the phases of the moon, or the life cycle of a mayfly invariably leads us to the vast infinity of poetry. 

Water
Ralph Waldo Emerson

The water understands
Civilization well;
It wets my foot, but prettily,
It chills my life, but wittily,
It is not disconcerted,
It is not broken-hearted:
Well used, it decketh joy,
Adorneth, doubleth joy:
Ill used, it will destroy,
In perfect time and measure
With a face of golden pleasure
Elegantly destroy.

REFERENCES

• Nature, an essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson (1836), Wikipedia.

Morning Rain

Thunder breaks my sleep. Night falls away to water dripping, clinging, and coursing. I don't know if my eyes are open.

Sounds, smells, and bright flashes carry me into the sharpness of my senses.

the moon is fleet

while branches clasp

to the rain

-Matsuo Bashō (1644-94)

Alan Watts wrote,

In Zen a man has no mind apart from what he knows and sees.

I notice my mind begins floating on the sounds of water. Water is not aware of the passing of the night, or of itself.

the long night;

the sound of water

says what I think

-Gochiku (1699-1781)

Water flows with purpose around obstacles. It has no commentary, no forethought, only purpose. Rain flows in a course like our deepest and most lasting knowledge is confined by experience.

spring day;

evening remains

in pools

-Kobayashi Issa (1763-1827)

We are often flooded by forethought or inundated by memories. Yet when an earthworm surfaces after a rain to move overland, it has no forethought of air travel. An earthworm never knows it will be plucked from the ground by a robin to be flown off to feed her hungry brood.


REFERENCES

• The Way of Zen, Alan Watts.
• Haiku Japanese to English translations.