We have all done it; watch somebody skimming stones across the water and many of us have tried it ourselves. Of course there are several things that are required in order to skim the stone. The stone itself must be flat, the water requires calmness without any waves and you need to bend your body at the right angle in order to throw the stone such that it hits the water and bounces again and again and again. Many things need to be in unison to help the stone skim over the water and to help the water allow the stone to skim.
But we tend not to be with the unity of what is happening because the skimming stone draws us into counting; it draws us into making judgements. How many times does it bounce across the water’s surface? The first couple of skips are easy to count and then as it loses momentum the skips become a stutter and it's difficult to enumerate them all. If we are with a competitive companion we are quite likely to argue just how many skips it made before it disappeared into the water. However hard we try, the skimming stone does not go on forever as when its energy runs out, its journey ends.
6... 7... 8...
after the joy
like us all
the flat stone sinks
In this image, taken at Little Haven beach in Pembrokeshire, a woman is skimming a stone. She is standing at the water's edge, shoeless, hitching up her dress so that it doesn't get wet. But we suspect that she will splash herself with the same water that a moment later will engulf the stone.
Pema Chodron says “Impermanence is a principle of harmony. When we don’t struggle against it, we are in harmony with reality.”
