Dewdrop - Zen

In the teachings of Zen Buddhism, the image of the dewdrop is a recurring favourite. On one level, like Japan's beloved cherry blossom, it symbolizes the transitory nature of life and that all things change and disappear in a blink of an eye.

However, on a deeper level, it symbolizes the fact that each apparent person reflects the entire universe within themselves. Both body and world arise simultaneously in consciousness and thus each moment expresses the infinite.

Of course, all metaphors are naturally limited and only serve to illustrate a particular aspect of understanding up to a point. In this case, the relative and the absolute, which is still a dualistic understanding.

On further removal of the veil clouding our vision, however, one comes to realize that there is no person and no world. There is only awareness and what apparently appears in awareness can neither be said to exist nor not exist. It cannot be expressed in words but it can be known through "being".

But as a poet struggles to express the inexpressible, one might attempt to say something like this...

Our true identity is not a person in the world, but infinite consciousness dreaming itself as a person in a world.

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