To Be or Knot to Be
Imagine you’re holding a foot-long piece of cotton rope. Tie a knot in the rope. Is the knot different from or other than the rope? No. The knot is simply a configuration of the rope.
Tie a second knot in the rope. Does this second knot differ from the first? Yes. It is in a different location, and it may be tighter or looser or larger or smaller than the first. Is the second knot different from or other than the rope? No. Both knots are the same rope.
The Dalai Lama has fourteen lives. Cats have nine. Mrs. Katz has only one. Is she the poorer for it?
RR
Now imagine the first knot is you and the second, a loved one. Untie the second knot. Where did it go? Nowhere. And yet it is gone. And to the extent you loved that knot—its unique shape and texture and “personality”—you will grieve over its loss. But, again, where did it go? Where could it go? The beloved knot is the rope, and the rope is still there.
While it is common and right to grieve over a beloved knot that is no longer, to imagine it somehow exists separate from the rope is to misunderstand the very nature of knots in the first place.