The Waterfall

G.K. Chesterton once wrote, “There are two ways of getting home; and one of them is to stay there. The other is to walk around the whole world til we come back to the same place.”

Some people seem to be content at home with their beliefs and traditions, but for others, familiarity breeds contempt. A person can be so intimate with his/her tradition that they can no longer see the truth, beauty, and goodness that has preserved it (just ask a member of the clergy who has burned out). When we feel this way, drinking from other streams can help us find refreshment at home. On my journey around the world, I have been reading Buddhist texts. Most recently, a book by Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki (1905-1971) called, Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind. It is a collection of informal talks given at the Tassajara Zen Mountain Center near San Francisco (the first Zen monastery established outside of Asia). What follows is a talk called “The Waterfall” that I have replicated in its entirety: ________________________________

If you go to Japan and visit Eiheiji monastery, just before you enter you will see a small bridge called Hanshaku-kyo, which means "half-dipper bridge." Whenever Dogen-zenji dipped water from the river, he used only half a dipperful, returning the rest to the river again, without throwing it away. That is why we call the bridge Hanshaku-kyo, "Half-Dipper Bridge."

At Eiheiji when we wash our face, we fill the basin to just seventy percent of its capacity. And after we wash, we empty the water towards, rather than away from, our body. This expresses respect for the water. This kind of practice is not based on any idea of being economical. It may be difficult to understand why Dogen returned half of the water he dipped to the river. This kind of practice is beyond our thinking. When we feel the beauty of the river, when we are one with the water, we intuitively do it in Dogen's way. It is our true nature to do so. But if your true nature is covered by ideas of economy or efficiency, Dogen's way makes no sense. I went to Yosemite National Park, and I saw some huge waterfalls. The highest one there is [1,430] feet high, and from it the water comes down like a curtain thrown from the top of the mountain. It does not seem to come down swiftly, as you might expect; it seems to come down very slowly because of the distance. And the water does not come down as one stream, but is separated into many tiny streams. From a distance it looks like a curtain. And I thought it must be a very difficult experience for each drop of water to come down from the top of such a high mountain. It takes time, you know, a long time, for the water finally to reach the bottom of the waterfall.

And it seems to me that our human life may be like this. We have many difficult experiences in our life. But at the same time, I thought, the water was not originally separated, but was one whole river. Only when it is separated does it have some difficulty in falling. It is as if the water does not have any feeling when it is one whole river. Only when separated into many drops can it begin to have or to express some

feeling. When we see one whole river we do not feel the living activity of the water, but when we dip a part of the water into a dipper, we experience some feeling of the water, and we also feel the value of the person who uses the water. Feeling ourselves and the water in this way, we cannot use it in just a material way. It is a living thing.

Before we were born we had no feeling; we were one with the universe. This is called "mind-only," or "essence of mind" or "big mind." After we are separated by birth from this oneness, as the water falling from the waterfall is separated by the wind and rocks, then we have feeling. You have difficulty because you have feeling. You attach to the feeling you have without knowing just how this kind of feeling is created. When you do not realize that you are one with the river, or one with the universe, you have fear. Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life. When the water returns to its original oneness with the river, it no longer has any individual feeling to it; it resumes its own nature, and finds composure. How very glad the water must be to come back to the original river! If this is so, what feeling will we have when we die? I think we are like the water in the dipper. We will have composure then, perfect composure. It may be too perfect for us, just now, because we are so much attached to our own feeling, to our individual existence.

For us, just now, we have some fear of death, but after we resume our true original nature, there is Nirvana. That is why we say, "To attain Nirvana is to pass away." "To pass away" is not a very adequate expression. Perhaps "to pass on," or "to go on," or "to join" would be better. Will you try to find some better expression for death? When you find it, you will have quite a new interpretation of your life. It will be like my experience when I saw the water in the big waterfall. Imagine! It was [1,430] feet high! 
We say, "Everything comes out of emptiness." One whole river or one whole mind is emptiness. When we reach this understanding we find the true meaning of our life. When we reach this understanding we can see the beauty of human life. Before we realize this fact, everything that we see is just delusion. Sometimes we overestimate the beauty; sometimes we underestimate or ignore the beauty because our small mind is not in accord with reality.


To talk about it this way is quite easy, but to have the actual feeling is not so easy. But by your practice of zazen you can cultivate this feeling. When you can sit with your whole body and mind, and with the oneness of your mind under the control of the universal mind, you can easily attain this kind of right understanding. Your everyday life will be renewed without being attached to an old erroneous interpretation of life. When you realize this fact, you will discover how meaningless your old interpretation was, and how much useless effort you had been making. You will find the true meaning of life, and even though you have difficulty falling upright from the top of the waterfall to the bottom of the mountain, you will enjoy your life.

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Suzuki writes from within an eastern framework, and some of what he said in this talk may not resonate with you. Terms like "big mind" and "one with the universe" and "no actual difficulty in life" might have thrown you off, but take what you can, and leave whatever doesn't make sense. Some speech is non-literal, but still true. Consider Suzuki's use of "emptiness," which he defines as "one whole river." To be empty in Buddhism is not to be a vacuum or void, rather it is to be in unity with the Whole.

In Christianity, the early church fathers wrote often of theosis and deification, terms which remain in use among Orthodox Christians and are appreciated by Catholics. Theosis refers to our participation in the Divine Nature, our complete unity with the Source of Being. In the 3rd century, Athanasius of Alexandria wrote, "He [Christ] was incarnate that we might be made god." As one of the earliest proponents of the Trinity, Athanasius was not proposing that humans can become God, but rather, that participation in the Divine, unity with the Source of Being, is possible.

In the New Testament, Peter writes something similar, calling us to be "partakers of the divine nature, now that you have escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires."


In meditation, the simple practice of sitting and focusing on the drawing and expelling of breath (zazen), we become aware of our integral relationship with the world around us. This is the experience of the waterfall, the emptiness, that Suzuki wants to awaken in us. Such a simple practice can introduce us to the joy inherent in our daily existence, whether we are stay at home parents, celebrities, entrepreneurs, unemployed, irreligious, or just human beings. May this reflection on a waterfall bring you home.

Russ Shumaker is a creative consultant and business strategist living in the Pacific Northwest of the United States. He holds an MA in Theology and an MBA. You can find him online here. See all previous articles by Russ Shumaker