Ten Thousand Waves, One Ocean

I got a wonderful piece of mail today from a friend back on the East Coast. Dennis (the artist), is a buddy, and a mentor, from a Sangha I'll do the service of not associating with this sordid blog of mine, a monk, and a generally all around great guy. He was kind enough to do some calligraphy for me that I'd wanted for some time; it's the Japanese for: "Ten Thousand Waves, One Ocean". I'm certainly not the first person to come up with this equation, statement, or, poem, if you will; and frankly, it's just a mish-mash, or holus-bolus (my new phrase AND a great small batch Syrah I just tasted, check it out if you can find it) of a bunch of semi-comprehensible, entirely misunderstood (by me) East-Asian, quasi Buddhist concepts. The jist of it, and I'm not sure I'm quite ready to get down to the nitty-gritty of it, is: Many pieces, one whole.
Of course, it's much more than that, but I'm continuing to learn, repeatedly, that just because I think something is beautiful and profound, that doesn't qualify me as the proper town crier to expound upon it. I know, because I've tried. I suppose what's special about all of this, for me, is learning, (or experiencing, maybe?) that shutting the hell up about all those wonderful things I think I've picked up, and actually listening to others, and their understandings, has taught me a whole lot more than just trying to run my mouth about my "wave". Putting "wave" in quotes, by the way, is really helping me to hammer home to myself just how corny this one little bit I've gotten so excited about really is. But more to the point, it's helped me to see the beauty in all of the pieces, instead of just trying to own the whole. And that's the trick, isn't it? Nobody owns, we all just rent...


That's Dennis to the left. And George, and Peter, and Michel.