Here we are in the middle of the world, using our hands and eyes and our minds and tongues. What we call “me” and “mine” is in fact an entangled mesh of relationships and there is no self or world we can experience independent of this complex web that we are. Our tissue has the same water that the ocean has—the ocean that’s in your tears, the ocean that runs through the city, under bridges, over walkways, on stones next to the river, with houseboats and birds, and the canals, which are veins through the city, keeping us alive. We might think of ourselves as individuals, but if we look for the place where we end and water, air, land, relationships, and stories begin, we find that we are intrinsically interdependent with the elements and stories that surround us. We are woven into the world and the world is woven into us.
Rivers, like the breath and the culture and everything that moves through us, carry wind and ideas, sutras, insights that float along and emerge in our bloodstream, our tissues, our way of moving and acting. Seven oceans, seven billion people, blood and tears washing the whole thing inside and out. That’s what we are.
When we hold on too tight, we contract and we miss the pulsing and imaginative core of life. When we let go, we experience loss. Then we find hope again; it comes in very small waves, sometimes with lots of bubbles, idea foam, and this foam fills us up with new ways of moving through the world. Your mother and father might lose their minds. The one you love might die. She might get cancer and have only a few chances to say goodbye to you and for the rest of your life you will miss her, she’ll be a scar, and you’ll never be able to know her again. The wave crashes. You’ll meet someone. He will love you. You may discover each other again and again. He will tell you about his hands and eyes and the scars he has. When you have the courage you’ll tell him about what you’ve lost and what you want. You’ll have a kid. Your sexuality will go through many changes. You’ll be attracted to each other then you won’t and then you will again. But it’s not your sexuality, not your gain, not your loss, not your ocean. It’s mesh—waves and waves of entanglement. No matter how much you try to transcend this you can’t, and so it’s painful.
What we are studying has everything to do with trust. The hands and eyes and ears and tissues of trust. You can’t just make it up. You practice with your whole heart, and slowly, slowly, the door begins to open from the other side.