The Fish, The Net, And The Water

Once the fish said to the turtle:

“I have heard about a huge thing that is called ‘the ocean.’ Does it really exist? I am looking around in search of it, but I can only see sand, shells and other fishes. Where is the ocean?”

The Turtle answered:

“The ocean is everywhere, inside and outside you, but if you look for a particular thing, you’ll miss it.”

[...]

All that you can perceive, know or understand is always limited to a particular form; it is not the Whole.

It is only the map, not the territory.

A map is made of several concepts and words that are linked together by the net of our thought, in order to give us a schematic as well as abstract view of the world we live in. It is just a useful tool, though unfit to capture the true essence of reality.

A fisherman’s net is actually a set of holes kept together by ropes; it can only catch fishes, but not the water in which it is totally immersed.

Similarly, the net of our thought can only grasp fragmented concepts about reality, but reality as such is always beyond its reach.

So, the inadequacy of our conceptual maps for a full understanding of reality pushes us to make them more and more intricate, on the assumption that, once they become complex enough, then they will finally be able to grasp the whole ‘truth’ from every possible point of view, which is tantamount to taking countless photos of a river in the impossible task to reproduce the actual flow of its stream. No matter how many there are, fixed photos will never be able to replicate any movement.

Reality is not a problem that should be solved, however complex we can imagine it is; reality is a mystery indeed.

We cannot ‘solve’ a mystery as if it were a problem; we can only fall into it and realize that we don’t need to ‘understand’ it, because we are it anyway.

Yet, out of frustration for being unable to understand the whole truth, we keep on creating more and more complex maps, instead of surrendering to the evidence that the mystery of existence is actually too simple to be known by mind’s complications - so simple, that it eludes any attempt to grasp it by thought.

However, sooner or later, our belief in concepts and mental maps spontaneously collapses – and this occurs in our life more often than we expect, though we usually don’t realize it consciously.

Then we may find ourselves free-falling in the unknown emptiness where the utter simplicity of being explodes into the wonder of this multifaceted universe.

In the light of this recognition, it becomes totally irrelevant whether our conceptual maps are at work or not, since they too – as any other experience – are just a momentary expression of the utter simplicity of being.