Scott and I have seen a great deal of bodies of water on our recent journeys. The Atlantic Ocean surrounding Cape Cod (photo below), Jordan Pond in Acadia, Maine (photo above), mountain creeks and streams that provided us needed hydration and swollen puddles after Hurricanes Irma and Nate left their calling card. So, I ask, was the puddle half full or half empty?
We have all heard the question, “Is your glass half empty, or is it half full?” The optimist and the pessimist describe it differently. Have you heard that a physician says that the glass is not empty at all – it is half-filled with water and half-filled with air – hence, fully filled on the whole! Ha!
Giovanni Deinstmann shares an analogy comparing our existence to that of a glass of water. Not if it is half full or half empty, but asking us to look at our deeper life as the water in the glass. What happens to the water in a glass when it is tossed into the ocean, he asks.
In Giovanni’s guided meditation “I Am Consciousness,” he reminds us that water in a glass remains when it is tossed into the ocean. As a science teacher, I understand that the molecules of H2O are still there yet they dissipate and travel, radiating the essence beyond the glass container into the vast waters of the world. If our consciousness is like the water and the container is the limiting definitions we hold of ourselves, what limitless possibilities and connections open for us if we pour ourselves out into the wide universe like water being released into the united water molecules of the ocean?
Can we release ourselves from the boundary of our cup/our scripted life and let the water in our cup permeate or runneth over beyond our self constricting limits and human attachments of form. Away from constrictions, such as how we define ourselves by our body, our sensations, our perceptions of the world around us and even our mind’s flow of thoughts? Mindfulness and meditation can help us lose the attachment to that which is superficial or fleeting. That which we cannot take with us after we die. What if we can find a way to transcend the attachments that lead us to suffering, as the Buddhists say, and allow our pure consciousness to connect by permeating out with our positive energy?
What on earth am I talking about?
I love analogies and I resonated with the analogy that our consciousness is like the water with the cup being a representation of the concrete life choices we make based on culture, fear or mindless obedience to the treadmill of life. The practice of mindfulness can take us beyond the cup into awareness so that we can transcend the forms and transcend the ‘shoulds’ to find our authentic deeper self. (Yes I have been reading a lot of mindfulness and meditation resources lately! Can you tell?) Giovanni’s meditations are found on a great resource called Insight Timer, a free app. While listening to his meditation I was able to use the imagery of my essence being water that permeates out of my contained life spreading to unite with a vast ocean, connecting to the energy and matter of the world around me. It was fleeting, but it was comforting.
No, I decided, I am going to keep the “cup” of my life, keep working, keep my family, keep eating healthy. Things like ownership and identity do matter at some very real level, but they do not have to define us. As water passes through a permeable container, or as water pours out into a vast ocean, so can our awareness and our life’s energy or consciousness blend and join the greater Divine Mystery, as Tara Brach helps describe. We can become the ‘watcher’ of our own life at the same time as we manifest our life into the daily forms of teacher, consultant, parent, pet owner. This container that defines our life can provide a way to move within our daily life as we manifest in the form of ‘who’ the world sees and the ‘who’ we perceive ourselves to be. But I want to be mindful that there is an interconnectedness that bonds us all. I believe there is more beyond my lil tiny existence in the universe.
Buddhists say that awareness helps us to detach from the suffering caused by attachment. If we can remove or lessen the dissatisfaction with limits or temporary strivings, then the sufferings and this fleeting definition of who we are can open to our simple Being. I imagine you have heard that we have become “humans doing, instead of humans being.” We can go beyond and find our connection with what encompasses us all. We can unite in peace with the universe around us as water unites with the ocean or with the crystal clear glacial lake like the pristine Jordan Pond.
Boy am I thirsty now. I guess I will go pour myself a glass of…lemonade. Lemonade… hmmm…that is made of lemons and when you have lemons… that brings up another topic for another time!
Blessings dear cups (or is it glasses half full..?) of water!