Water Zen

Water Zen is my name for the practice of using the element of water for meditation practice. The raw and direct experience of moment-to-moment reality is the foundation of Zen meditation practice. The word "Zen" comes from the Sanskrit word "dhyana", which means "absorption". We all know that absorption has everything to do with water! The other well-known fact is that our bodies are mostly water, and on our planet Earth water is the carrier of life. So, when we turn our inner attention to water, the great dissolver and creator of all forms, we have direct communication to the source of life.

Listening With the Body

Listening intently is a state of quiet, alert receptivity. Imagine yourself walking in a deep, woodsy forest and you hear a twig snap in the near distance, suddenly your whole body is listening! This level of listening is a deep biological attunement with the environment and field of surrounding energy. It is not just a passive state of receiving, as is sometimes imagined, but a highly alert and reciprocal energetic relationship. It is akin to tuning an instrument, plucking a string then listening, then tightening or loosening the string, and doing it again and again until it is in tune.

What if we saw our whole body as that instrument which is continually in the process of being tuned by biological and cosmic forces. The fluctuating pull of gravity, the electro-magnetic solar flare, the expanding spiral of our galaxy, all tuning the cells of our body. I realized that I have been mostly listening to my body, but not listening with my body. When I listen to my body, I notice there is a subtle duality between my "body" and its "message to me". When I listen with my body, there are no parts that are separate from the bio-cosmic energy field. Then there is only listening!

Water as Boundary

Water is the boundary between form and formlessness. Since I am mostly water, I am also the boundary between form and formlessness!

Delicate Structure

This is an image from surf photographer, Clark Little. I am amazed at this delicate transparent structure, captured at the exact moment, and then returned to the ocean. How perfect!

Appreciation

A wave of appreciation has washed over me with a swelling of gratitude for our human bodies, a collection of cellular symphonies with a multi-million year history of design refinement to get to this moment! Appreciation arises for the liver, the intestines, the heart, the lungs, the brain, the tongue..... all undulating and pulsing with the rhythm of an unbroken beat, a continuous baseline metabolism, who's origin was birthed in the movement and tides of an ancient ocean.

Absorption

Total absorption, 

the sponge is full of water.

Immersion

If we understand the universe as a Vast Wave Medium, then we can realize our own bodies as condensed or congealed aspects of this pool of wave energy. Our immersion in this ever present creative wave medium is a given. Our own resonate "body of water" is the receiver and sender of wave energy, and in this view everything in the universe is alive with waves; electromagnetic, gravity, sound, light, breath, emotion, and movement, all are integral to the vast pool of wave energy. So the truth of our bodies, as Emilie Conrad says, is "we don't have to move, we are movement". This deep allowing to be enveloped and penetrated by the waves of life-as-it-is, to be moved, to be dissolved, and to be continually re-created, is for me the essence of the creative life. I think we should all follow the advice of my dissolved-into-love friend Jeannie Zandi, who says simply, "Let it have you".