I am aware of an oceanic stillness containing all life, and I believe that when all the veils of personality and identity are moved aside, this stillness and our essence are one.

The observing entity cannot itself be observed. It remains still and true, even as it watches the movement.

Duck

A duck that is far from the shore on a turbulent sea remains at one with its environment. Despite its apparently perilous status, it sits down amongst the waves and rests. It doesn’t contemplate the vastness of the ocean, it just meditates and knows the vastness by direct, immediate experience.

The duck surrenders to nature and waits. It is completely itself despite being in peril, far from its protective shelter.

Cover

In the turbulence of life, I use covers to protect myself from uncomfortable truths, unpredictable events and harsh realities. Covers of illusion, distraction, avoidance, stimulation and contortion. I focus on how these covers might be received by others rather than experiencing the raw, vast untamed….emptiness.

Whatever cover we use, and despite our multiple personalities, the stillness underneath remains. The same stillness for all people all the time.

Without sight of this reality, I focus on doing things, striving and achieving to provide me with a sense of self. Materialism as compensation for agitation. Unlike my duck friend, I strive harder when I believe I am separate from creation, and I think that without something to feed my ego and remind the world that I am here, I will drown in the unfathomable vastness of space and time.

An ability to sit with emptiness, to accept being a void in a void….not to avoid, is to find paradoxical new depths of substance filled with fresh potential and intuitive knowledge.

But only when I can sit like a little duck on a big ocean, submitting to turbulence, accepting rather than resisting the constantly unfolding creation, can I realise peace now.

Thanks to Donald C. Babcock for his 1947 poem about the duck on the ocean.

by Tom Charles

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