It's a difficult thing, to live. Each day, we are swept up in a torrent that we can neither control nor avoid. With each crashing wave and arduous bend we continue on, following the current created by our past actions and the machinations of unseen circumstances both. We traverse the endless abyss of possibility never aware of how our slightest movements affect the path upon which we are carried. Life can be generous or cruel; but in every twist and turn, every ebb and flow, there is an unseen beauty.

We see the birds and the fish continuing down their own course and wonder how it is that they flow so gracefully while we struggle to stay afloat. We, so convinced of our own superiority - so arrogant as to believe we can swim faster than the fish and fly higher than the birds - we continue to struggle against that which is inescapable.

They know without knowing. They do without doing. They swim and they fly without ever wondering what it means to do either. They are perfection. When we learn to stop struggling, we will flow as they flow. We will know without knowing. We will do without doing. We will realize that we are perfection. This is the very essence of Zen. This is true Nirvana.