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Strangers in the Light
Chapter 1:
Random Email
(by SweetWater 
, added on August 14, 2003 06:19 PM EST)
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You do it every day. You go through your in-box and throw away all that spam. "I don't know that person... *Delete!*" "Oh, sure, I really need to have all these body parts enlarged... *Delete!*" "Oh, my god, not another copy of the Craig Shergold chain mail...!" *Delete!* *Delete!* *Delete!*"
So what makes you stop and actually open one from someone you never even heard of? What was so atttactive about that simple subject line: "The Wave."
I don't know what made me double-click that one - and I fully expected, as my hard-drive ground, to be confronted with a madly blinking advertizement about some kind of hair product, or maybe a time-share ad for a condo in North Dakota. But when the ascii text finally resolved in front of my eyes, I felt a kind of calm, like a warm blanket settling around my shoulders. The bustle of the office around me faded into a kind of gentle background buzzing...
"Ah, the Wave," the writer began. And then went on...
"When I read your post, I was reminded of the Brahma's Breath, the Mountain and Waters Sutra of the Sensei Dogen. He had said that the wave has a beginning and an end, a birth and a death, that the wave is full of emptiness but is empty of a separate self. So that, while it is created by the wind, it identifies with the water, with the essence, so it is not afraid of birth and death. The water is free from birth and death. "Thank you for your posting. I know you never intended to, but you have reminded me of things I had nearly forgotten."
Honestly, I could not for the life of me remember having made any post in any of the mailing lists I belonged to, about Waves or Mountains or Brahmas breath. "Some kind of nut," I said to myself, and deleted the message. Time to get back to work! I kicked a heavy box of files across to the bank of cabinets behind me and started trying to make some kind of order out of them.
But every time I had to turn around, I saw my computer screen glowing softly at me, and I thought about who could have written such a note. Truly it had been a thoughtful and gentle-hearted message. What if the sender had meant to send it to someone else and had accidentally sent it to me? (Nevermind for now how they "accidentally" got my email address!) I really should at least have the decency to respond, but...
Now, why on earth should that thought fill me with such mixed feelings? It felt a little bit like fear - a kind of tingling sensation that gripped my ribcage - but come to think of it, excitement also felt like that...
By the time I had got down to the "C's" in the file box, I knew I had distracted myself over it enough. I would be more productive if I would just write back to the person and get it over with. After all, even if the person were a psychopath, they couldn't hurt me - I had the anonymity of the entire internet between me and...her? Him?
So I opened my "Trash" folder and found the message and hit "Reply."
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Chapter 2:
Chapter 2 Back at Ya
(by Merv
, added on March 8, 2004 09:54 PM EST)
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Gazing at a copy of "The Great Wave Off Kanagawa" to gather my thoughts, I began...
"Which list??? Who are you??? I don't usually reply to addresses I don't recognize, but I'm glad I could bring back memories like this.
> When I read your post, I was reminded of the Brahma's Breath,
Ahhh, Brama's Breath, the expansion and contraction of the universe
> the Mountain and Waters Sutra of the Sensei Dogen. He had said that the wave has a beginning and an end, a birth and a death, that the wave is full of emptiness but is empty of a separate self.
Mmm, the absence of dualism, no one yes and no, all yes and no
> So that, while it is created by the wind, it identifies with the water, with the essence, so it is not afraid of birth and death. The water is free from birth and death.
There is no birth, there is no death, only change. We change day to day, as a daffodil first sprouts, then swells and blooms. It's said that then it dies, but it doesn't die because it comes back next year
> Thank you for your posting. I know you never intended to, but you have reminded me of things I had nearly forgotten.
Not a problem, but I think you may need to keep it simpler :)
Maybe life is as simple as a stream running down a canyon. Both the stream and the canyon shape each other. Maybe our lives and the earth/universe shape each other.
Love and Light
Walking Stick |
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