Today, I thumbed through an issue of National Geographic and found a picture of a frog on a lily pad. On the next page, in Japanese, was a Matsuo Basho haiku from his series on frogs. It reads as follows:
Furu ike ya
kawazu tobikomu
mizu no oto
and can be translated as:
Listen! a frog
jumping into the stillness
of an ancient pond
Another translation is:
The old pond;
a frog jumps in -
the sound of water (amazing how many translations there are on this given haiku -- evidence of small ripples of importance, indeed).
I fell in love with this moment today because of my affinity for frogs (and Grannie Annie) but also my understanding of this ancient pond. Life is old and we humans, with the idea of rationality, ascribe it with history. Sitting on a lily pad or swimming through a pond, I have life only for a moment. How I move matters. Yet, tomorrow, new frogs will arrive and another generation of lily pads will exist. Only the pond remains constant. Like Siddhartha's river, it provides a serenity of "om" beyond my individuality. Those who use its resource(s) are never permanent, although their actions can cause a slight ripple, if only for a moment.
Sort of like the Shakespeare "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow speech," eh?
Currently, I sit on a lily pad
I have a choice to jump.
For this moment, I'm choosing to appreciate the pond, itself, and not the ripples I make.
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