Like a whirlpool in a stream, I notice that the world flows through me: into me and then out of me. I am nothing more than an eddy with a consciousness, and a mistaken one at that: one that thinks itself separate, but isn’t, and never can be.
An eddy cannot exist separate from the water, because it IS water. It’s a local moment of the whole stream as it flows. I do not exist separate from the universe, because I am universe. I am a local moment of the whole universe as it flows.
The universe flows into “me” in the form of water and food and breath and shots and light and sound and thought.
And flows out of “me” in the form of waste and sweat and tears and hair and fingernails and toenails and blood and flakes of skin and light and sound and thought.
Breath flows into “me” from trees, carried by the wind. Breath flows out of “me” and returns to the wind and back into the trees.
Sound flows on the wind into “me” from people and animals and moving things. Sound flows out of “me” and returns to the wind and flows into and out of more people and animals and things.
Food flows into “me” from animals and plants. It flows out of “me” and back into the world and back into the animals and plants.
Water flows into “me” from the stream and water flows out of “me” as blood or sweat or tears or waste and returns to the stream and flows into trees and animals and bugs and bacteria, some of which I eat and then return to the world to be consumed and released again.
Nothing is ever mine, in any separate way. Everything is borrowed and exchanged, right on time and in perfect measure.
Every single atom in every single cell I was born with, (all of which already existed before there was a “me”) is gone from “me” and returned to the universe. Not a single one is still in this immediate body. They’re all downstream now. And every minute, more flow in. And who knows? Maybe some have looped back.
All of who I “am” now is the result of a flow that is always flowing through me.
I am indistinguishable from the flow. I’m just a moment of flowing universe. A little swirl of universe in a vast and continuous stream from which I can never be separate.