Moonlight in the Water

You’ve heard of the teaching about how the moon can be reflected in a bowl of water? I think it comes from the Zen tradition. If you go outside on a clear moonlit night, you can place a bowl of water on the ground and when the water in the bowl becomes still you see the reflection of the moon in the water.

The teaching is about mistaking the reflection for the moon itself. Human bodies have the light of awareness within them, but the source of that light is all pervasive. The source of the moonlight in the bowl is in the sky.

Now you could place another bowl of water next to the first one, and you'd have two reflections of the moon, but do you have two moons? No of course not, if you put 100 bowls of water on the ground, you have 100 reflections, but still one moon, one light source.

It is necessary to know your inner nature as it is; boundless, luminous awareness. When you realize that, you begin to break the spell of un-enlightenment. But until then, people will continue to misunderstand themselves, believing they exist as independant beings, identifying with the minds’ story about where the bowl came from where it’s going, or presuming that they each have their own individual moon, as if it takes 100 moons to make 100 reflections!

When we get caught up in our personal story, past conflicts, our future plans, belief systems , then we are disconnected from the simple base of awareness itself, and we go off into a whole world created by the mind. Our light stream has become converted into thoughts, emotions and points of view. This disconnect is the primary cause of many types of mental disorders and physical illnesses.

It has been said "you are not in your body, your body is in you". The source of all of us is all pervading primordial awareness. That light source is presently shining into your body, and shining or reflecting from you.

What's interesting is the relationship between the bowls of water. If I’m just involved in my story of me and my life , I will probably find others in the same condition, and we could go on about our successes and failures, hopes and  dreams, anything that supports and perpetuates the notion of being a separate somebody. It’s that kind of confused existence that Shakyamuni was talking about when He said “the whole notion of existence is madness”.

But, as individuals human beings have a very great potential. People offering each other pure presence is something that is still rare in this world. In order to enable that kind of direct non-dual relationship we need to connect the light reflected within us to its all pervasive sky like source. The moon light in the sky is the source and the light in the bowl of water is the reflection. It’s simple but you need to have a real, living, functioning connection with it all. Many people know these teachings very well, but it remains just another teaching, just concepts or intuition. You can still just get lost in a world of spiritual beliefs. I know lots of people, even some who are spiritual teachers who can talk expertly about “the teachings” all day long, but they are still lost in the minds’ world. That is like being asleep dreaming you are awake.

There is a saying “truth recognizes itself”. It is so easy and natural to harmonize with awareness itself in any form it takes. Struggling is not relationship. Sometimes I refer to those who have come out of the whole trance of the mind as “Awareness Beings”, that means individuation without being bound to a separate subjective point of view. So there is a mutually shared base. It’s really easy to share with people like that, communication is effortless.