Enlightenment. Satori. Zen. Mindfulness. Living in the Present. All is ‘Transient.’ 

  Blah, blah, blah. 

  We always, always need a word or words for it. We make noise about the ‘mind’ getting in the way, and then we surround the noise with more noise, more words. Maybe a definition here and a new and novel category there. And then someone real sharp with a few diplomas hanging on their wall comes up with a new term to encapsulate a new concept. “Wow,” the pundature exclaim, “that’s it!” And people fall in line behind this new word and its accompanying idea. 

  Good luck with that, I say, because you’re all on the wrong path. 

  Go outside. The grass has turned green and the flowers are sprouting and the bushes and trees are in bud. 

  What are they doing? What are they actually DOING? 

  I’ll tell you. 

  The Flow of Life has resumed after a long winter’s pause. If I zero in on the tree outside my door the leaves are budding and will soon open up to the sun’s call in order to drink in its energy. Then it will be in flower, sending its pollen into the air to fructify a neighbouring tree and be fructified in its turn. All to produce a nut, the seed of a new tree. 

  It is the eternal tale. I call it The Great Passing Through, the invisible Flow from one generation through to the next in order to Flow through that next in its turn. The individual nothing, the Flow everything. 

  And that Flow is universal, Flowing through every living species on Planet Earth and beyond! 

  And through US too! That’s the thing! That invisible Flow, that Great Passing Through is Flowing through us too, from all time through all generations to and through US!

  The other day I was having coffee on a local terrace. Next to me was a young mother chatting with another young mother. Both were rocking prams with sleeping infants in them. I smiled. “There it is,” I said to myself, “the Flow in action.”

  The unseen, unseeable Great Passing Through in action. 

  To know that, to feel it, is ‘Enlightenment,’ ‘Satori,’ ‘Zen,’ ‘Mindfulness.’ Whatever you want to call it. 

  Whatever Word you want to give it.