# Water-Simple The simplest thing in the world is water. It has no colour of its own, no shape, no voice. It takes the colour of the vessel that holds it, the shape of the ground it flows upon, the noise of the stones it encounters. And yet water is perhaps the most powerful thing we know. A stone falls into water and creates ripples. The ripples expand outward, touching everything, moving everything—and the water remembers nothing. No scar remains on its surface after the stone has sunk. It flows on, indifferent, eternal. We are taught to seek complexity, to pride ourselves on our sophistication, our cleverness. We believe that depth lies in complications, in the tortuousness of our thoughts, in the elaborate architecture of our emotions. But perhaps we have it backwards. Perhaps the deepest wisdom is the simplest. Water does not resist. It does not insist on being right. It flows around obstacles rather than fighting them. It seeks the lowest place, the place we are taught to avoid, and in that lowness finds its path. It nourishes without demanding gratitude. It cleanses without requiring acknowledgement. When I watch water, I see a teaching. Not the teaching of strength, though water is strong enough to carve mountains. Not the teaching of victory, though water always finds its way. The teaching is of surrender—of letting go, of flowing, of being so simple that nothing can disturb your essential nature. We carry within us so much that is not water. We are dense with memory, heavy with regret, turbid with desire. We have made ourselves opaque. We have forgotten how to be transparent, how to let light pass through us unchanged. Perhaps that is why we are drawn to water. In it, we glimpse what we once were and what we might become again: simple, clear, capable of taking any form and yet remaining entirely ourselves. To be water-simple: this is perhaps the highest aspiration.

1. The moment a person begins to doubt their own vital force, that is when despair and disillusionment take root.

2. What once settles in the mind cannot be forgotten—if you cannot accept this, married life will never know happiness.

3. To one who wishes to see you intoxicated, all your certificates of character are worthless.

4. Any woman can bear a child, but becoming a mother—that is the true test. Some give birth yet never become mothers, while others become mothers without ever giving birth.

5. If your beloved shares a deep bond with another, and you cannot accept this, then you have only two paths: either leave them behind, or consent to sorrow for the rest of your life.

6. Hang a sign outside your house gate: Beware of dogs!
Hang a sign outside your heart's gate: Beware of zealotry!

7. The easiest way to lose a friend is to lay bare, right before their eyes, every evidence of their moral corruption.

8. In comparing the person you live with to the person you desire in your heart, people drown themselves in melancholy.

9. Those who thrust their wisdom upon you uninvited are not sages—they are meddlers.

10. It is hard to accept the loss of one who has passed from sight; yet far harder—infinitely harder—is accepting the loss of one who remains before your eyes.

11. Thank heaven you are a person of such fine nature, spoiled though you are! Otherwise I would never have had the chance to feel you in such beautiful disarray.

12. The will to be well is more essential than anything. Money—someone can give you that. But the will itself? No one can give you that.

13. Bring a bottle of whisky or a girlfriend to a party, and your worth rises. A party is no prayer gathering where the sight of scripture in your hands sends everyone into raptures. If there is any affront to religion here, the blame lies wholly with your want of judgment. Pretense does not work everywhere.

14. You promised you would write to me one day. How strange! That single promise of yours has drawn so many letters from me—yet the promised letter itself has never arrived!

15. Can you honor me as you once did, forgetting what happened that night? Please, come—let us two share the burden of that night's error together, and remain friends.

16. Come, let us end this unbearable bond today, the two of us. Come, let us hold each other close and weep for a long time.

17. The one I never possessed—my bond with them still gleams and burns in a few strong poems. The one I did possess—my bond with them now stands as a few feeble poems, blocking the way.

18. The one whose presence is stronger than your sorrow—that is the right person for you.

19. The heart dies from disuse. Do not seek the beauty of life from one whose existence holds nothing beyond household and livelihood.

20. Even now I am ready to give you the seat of honor before all else.