24

THE WATERFALL

SOMETIMES I CRY when I meditate. I cry because there is a feeling of connection. When I go deep into my practice, I touch the ground, the great earth, all that is.

I connect to all those who are breathing, all those who are gasping for breath, all those who are drowning or breathing their last breaths on their deathbeds, all those who are panting in sickness or trying hard to breathe because they are old and every movement hurts. I connect with the newborn’s first breath of life, that beautiful first breath that exchanges itself with the world. I connect with the mother, whispering and cooing to her baby, holding it so close. They are exchanging breath, their breath is mingled in the way the breath must mingle in the kiss of young lovers, and although as a monk I have never had that kiss, I connect with the lovers too.

The plants are breathing, exchanging waste and transforming it into the air we breathe. They are breathing in and out, quietly and gently infusing the air, making it delicious, making it good. We are cradled in the great lap of the world, which holds us close, as close as the mother holds her child, as close as the lovers hold each other.

Intimacy and love are all around us. The beauty of life is beyond words. It is so profound and yet so simple. I touch it and at the same time it is deeply touching me. This present moment is a common moment. How many lives come and how much life goes? Right here, right now; appearing and disappearing; coming and going; arising and falling away. The tears come from my overflowing heart.

It is as Thich Nhat Hanh says: “I have arrived; I am home.”

I like to say: “Home at last!”

This is my refuge.

I also have tears when there are feelings of gratitude toward my teachers or the triple gem—the Buddha, dharma, and Sangha. The Sangha is not just the group of people you practice Buddhism with or our human community: it is all beings—the rivers, trees, mountains, forests.

Everything is teaching us. Constantly.

This realization brings with it an overwhelming feeling of gratitude. It is as though I have been blind for millions of years. The whole world has been dark and suddenly someone has brought a lamp.

All the lineage masters appear and I can clearly see them in a long line, a totem going backward in time, a tree with countless graceful branches, a waterfall of ceaselessly flowing love and compassion from those who have come before me, who have taken the posture, who touched the great earth. It is a reunion, a congregation of the compassion that has accumulated for 2,500 years. It is full of the gentlest, kindest, most tender energy. It is so pure in its good intention, so cleansing, so cooling, like swimming in a cool stream on a blazing hot day.

The tears come from the gratitude for the greatest gift—the gift of life, our plain and simple ordinary life: the sun, the moon, the stars, the great earth, the breath—all so ordinary, so available, nothing mysterious. And yet, each moment, a miracle.