Still Water Sangha - Thursday, Nov 13, 2025 - no Coming, no Going

 

a post card on a mirror: "This is no place to look for perfection."

This post card can be placed in any place, in any context.... as the mind spirals into perfectionism, and anxiety, and begins to head into panic in pursuit of gaining..

'You are already what you want to be'....

Taking Comfort in the Falling Leaves

Thursday Evening Online Program
November 13, 2025, 7:00 to 8:45 pm Eastern time

Dear Still Water Friends,

Recently, I’ve noticed an underlying sense of being weighed down by accumulated grief from the past and fear of the future. This week I received a sorrowful text from a friend that November eighth is the tenth anniversary of his first wife’s death. I’d known my friend and his wife as a couple for fifteen years before her unexpected, tragic accident and death. 

Reading the text, I was shocked that so much time has elapsed since her death. The day after she died, I spent time with her husband and other friends at the couple’s house, looking at photos, cuddling kitties, cooking, listening to stories about her life and hearing more about their lives together. 

In the last few days, I’ve not only thought of her life cut short but wondered who I am now and how I’ve lived my life these past ten years. Time seems to have floated away, and my instinct is to clutch at what remains. In our morning meditation group, we are reading Thích Nhất Hạnh’s (Thầy’s) book No Death, No Fear in which he talks about the two dimensions. There is the historical dimension, in which we perceive life as beginning with each of us being born at a certain time and then ending as we die at a certain time, and there is the ultimate dimension—our timeless true nature, in which there is no birth and no death.

Thầy writes: 

Our true nature is the nature of no birth and no death. We do not have to go anywhere in order to touch our true nature. The wave does not have to look for water because she is water. We do not have to look for God, we do not have to look for our ultimate dimension or nirvana, because we are nirvana, we are God. You are what you are looking for. You are already what you want to become. You can say to the wave, "My dearest wave, you are water. You don't have to go and seek water. Your nature is the nature of nondiscrimination, of no birth, of no death, of no being and of no non-being." Practice like a wave. Take the time to look deeply into yourself and recognize that your nature is the nature of no-birth and no-death. You can break through to freedom and fearlessness this way. This method of practice will help us to live without fear, and it will help us to die peacefully without regret.

If you carry within yourself deep grief, if you have lost a loved one, if you are inhabited by fear of death, oblivion and annihilation, please take up this teaching and begin to practice it. If you practice well, you will be capable of looking at the cloud, the rose, the pebble or your child with the kind of eyes the Buddha has transmitted to us. You will touch the no-birth, no-death, no-coming, no-going nature of reality. This can liberate you from your fear, from your anxiety and your sorrow. Then you can truly have the kind of peace that will make you strong and stable, smiling as events happen. Living this way will allow you to help many people around you.
 

I find this reading deeply comforting, especially the line, “You are what you are looking for. You are already what you want to become.” Even when I can’t wrap my mind around this, I can go outside, breathe slowly, walk on the earth, and watch the falling leaves. 

Here in the Washington, DC area, waves of autumn leaves are letting go now, many more of them than the losses present in my life and in all our lives. Thầy’s words call me back to myself, reminding me what I’d like to focus on in my remaining life. I am grateful to have known my friend who died ten years ago, and I am grateful to have all the wonderful family and friends by whom I am surrounded and held. My aspiration is to open more to gratitude for and wonder at being alive, releasing anxiety and fear.

This Thursday night, after our regular sitting, we will explore three questions together:

• What practices help you come back to yourself when you feel weighed down by life?
• What are your current aspirations in your life?
• Who in your life has helped you experience joy and hope, even in challenging circumstances?

You are warmly invited to join us!

Peace,
Eliza King