The Religion of One's Own

In great cold, water freezes and becomes ice.
In great heat, water rises and becomes vapor.
Otherwise water remains water.

The same water... sometimes water, sometimes ice, sometimes vapor.

Ask a child about it.
She will call water water, ice ice, vapor vapor.
She knows how to separate things. She doesn't know that ice and vapor were once water. Not knowing this, to her the color of ice, the color of vapor, the color of water—none are the same; they are three different kinds. Their forms too are three different kinds.

Ask the child's mother.
She will call water water; when she calls ice ice, she will add the knowing that it is truly water; when she calls vapor vapor, she will add the knowing that it is truly water.
She knows how to separate things and how to unite them both. To her, these three have the same color, their forms too are truly one. Where she sees three things, she sees one thing; where her child sees three things in three, she sees one in three.

There is a joy in thinking of water as only water.
There is a joy in thinking of ice as only ice.
There is a joy in thinking of vapor as only vapor.
To have this joy, one must know how to think. To know how to think, one must push away another thought while holding one thought. If one doesn't know how to push away, one cannot even know that there is something to push away.

Every thing has its own beauty. A thing as it is must be seen as it is. If while looking at it we also think of something else, we cannot truly enjoy its beauty.

As we grow, intelligence grows, the mind grows. When these grow, what we see, the more we see it, the more we see what isn't even there! What happens then is this: while seeing one beauty, we think of another. So we cannot properly enjoy either beauty.

Children don't have this sorrow of knowing too much. Not having it, they see beauty whole. What they see, they think only of that. What they think, they see only that. They go from ice to ice cream, they don't return to water. They go from vapor to balloons, they don't return to water. That they must return—they don't even know it! How much sorrow in knowing! How much failure in knowing!

Adults only know how to return. On the path of joy, one must never look back. Look back and there is only grief and grief!

Some things, once left behind, must be left behind. To pick them up again is only danger!

If you want the joy of seeing ice, you must stay in ice.
If you want the joy of seeing vapor, you must stay in vapor.
If you cannot stay, both joys will finally become water!

If you think of the rainbow as only water droplets, doesn't the color of the rainbow fade away? What good is there in that?