River in a Bucket

This week I’m bringing you one of my favorite snippets from Alan Watts’ The Wisdom of Insecurity:

”You cannot understand life and its mysteries as long as you try to grasp it. Indeed, you cannot grasp it, just as you cannot walk off with a river in a bucket. If you try to capture running water in a bucket, it is clear that you do not understand it and that you will always be disappointed, for in the bucket the water does not run. To ‘have‘ running water you must let go of it and let it run. The same is true of life and of God.”

When I find myself clinging to my expectations, to my memories, or to what I have accrued in this life, I remind myself to come back to this practice of letting life flow past me.