Govinda
I do not desire to walk on water. Let old samanas content themselves with such tricks.
Perhaps what keeps keeps you from finding peace is the many words. For redemption and virture, samsara and Nirvana are also mere words, Govinda. There is no thing that is Nirvana; there is only the word “Nirvana”.
I barely distinguish between thoughts and words. Here on this ferry, for example, there was a man, my teacher; for years he simply believed in the river and noting else. He noticed that the river’s voice spoke to him; he learned from its voice, it raised him and taught him. The river seemed like a god to him. For many years he did not know that every wind, every cloud, every bird, every bug is just as godly and knows and can teach just as much as the venerated river. But when this saint went into the forest, he knew everything, knew more than you and I, without teachers, without books, only because he believed in the river.
Whether things are semblances or not, I too am a semblance, after all, and so they are always my peers. That is what makes them so dear to me and venerable: they are my peers. That is why I can love them. And now this is a teaching that you will laugh at: Love, O Govinda, seems paramount to me. Seeing through the world, explaining it, despising it may be crucial to great thinkers. But all I care about is to be able to love the world, not to despise it, not to hate it or myself, to be able to view it and myself and all beings with love and admiration and awe.
