Take a few moments to watch the rising and falling away of the waves upon the surface of the water that fills the pond.

In each moment there is an arising that briefly appears, we look and call it wave. But the wave is never anything other than the water. The wave never departs from being water. From the perspective of the wave, it has a beginning and an end. From the perspective of the water, there is only ever water, there is no moment of arising or ceasing. The water transcends the momentariness of the fragile, ephemeral wave.

Buddha taught that we are like a wave that hasn’t realized it is water. Our nature has already awakened, we just haven’t recognized it yet.