Follow the River

by Sheila Collins

The story behind this insight is that I was participating in one of my first sesshins at the Doshinji monastery in Mt. Tremper, NY (under John Daido Loori) during the 1980’s. I was very young, very disillusioned with what I saw as the ceaseless round of impermanent and vain activity. I so wanted to know the meaning of life, so I threw myself into sitting practice whole-heartedly. Yet no insight would emerge! I knew it must; I was desperate. I spent my time between the intense sitting sessions crying or feeling cheated and angry. Why could I not see? Finally, during a rest period, I put a book of Buddhist sutras under my pillow and told myself that “the truth will surely sink into my head while I’m sleeping and when I wake up, I’ll know it!” So I began to fall asleep, chuckling a bit over the silly pronouncement. But when I suddenly awoke, the first thing I saw was the door of my room and it immediately triggered something. It was a door transformed into an opening in my mind that was shockingly instantaneous and complete. Truth was there, more solid than the door. It was just pure knowing (which I will try to relate something of here). The silly effort of mine had worked, I guess. Even though it is a relatively small insight, nonetheless it greatly boosted my faith and encouraged further practice. Now I know that enlightenment is possible (someday I will truly achieve it!). It is not a dream. It is just our own deep realization of what is. As such, I believe that true experiences of enlightenment, insight (or whatever we wish to call it), have the power to transform every individual on countless levels.


In a flash
There is an understanding
Or is it an understanding?
It is more like a window – or a door
Suddenly thrown open

In front of your eyes
Filling all of space
Is simply one knowledge
It is the light of reality

Eternity pours through the universe
Splitting it
Tearing it apart
An enormous chasm stands revealed
Flowing within, a great river

Or twin rivers yet one
Perfect Love and Intelligence
Nothing else.
The very substance of all things
The beginning and the end
Wide and deep
Broad and vast

Love the origin?
Intelligence the expression?
No they really run together….
They cannot be considered separate
Standing as Truth, peerless
Without anything to obstruct

So what is everything else?
All of the “things”;
Human machinations,
Good and bad,
What is mentally created,
What we should do or shouldn’t
That which we suffer for?

Only smoke
Smoke rising in circles
From endless time
Obscuring the truth
But never diminishing it

Of no real substance
It’s all the conditioning
Everything anybody’s ever told us
Everything we’ve ever come to know
One step acting on another
Twisting and transforming
So-called individual personality

But we are far beyond that!
In true nature the self is whole
Never once blighted or injured
Storming through eternity
In power and peace
Or like the eye of a whirlpool
Deep and quiet, yet dynamic

Once a window is opened
It might shut again swiftly
But the taste, the memory lingers
Desire to attain
Such bliss of reality
Such clear sight provoking
The right way of living
Is intensified

To follow the twin rivers
And arrive at their source;
See into nature
And manifest it.
What life’s purpose could be greater?
Therefore, this is a vow.