The Ketamine Experience: The Story Of The Waterfall
This is a transcript of the video which has been edited for readability.
In this blog, we’ll explore an insightful story from a zen meditation master about waterfalls. We also explain how this story relates to the transformative journey one can have during ketamine treatments and why we are all, ultimately, just droplets in this universe.
According to Shunryu Suzuki, our lives are very similar to the droplets of a waterfall.
The Beauty of Waterfalls
Shunryu Suzuki, a zen meditation teacher, went to visit Yosemite Falls and when he got there, he saw these amazing waterfalls. He then gave this great story about the waterfalls and the droplets. Now if you think about a waterfall, it's one river before it starts coming down and hitting that cliff and as the water hits the cliff and starts coming down, there's thousands of droplets that come from there. And ultimately, they all come and connect at the bottom. Here is his own description from Zen Mind Beginner's Mind.
“I went to Yosemite National Park, and I saw some huge waterfalls. The highest one there is 1,340 feet high, and from it the water comes down like a curtain thrown from the top of the mountain. It does not seem to come down swiftly, as you might expect; it seems to come down very slowly because of the distance. And the water does not come down as one stream, but is separated into many tiny streams. From a distance it looks like a curtain. And I thought it must be a very difficult experience for each drop of water to come down from the top of such a high mountain. It takes time, you know, a long time, for the water finally to reach the bottom of the waterfall. And it seems to me that our human life may be like this. We have many difficult experiences in our life. But at the same time, I thought, the water was not originally separated, but was one whole river. Only when it is separated does it have some difficulty in falling. It is as if the water does not have any feeling when it is one whole river. Only when separated into many drops can it begin to have or to express some feeling.”
Just like drops in a waterfall, we were all born together and will all rejoin when our lives end.
What The Story Means
This was, for him, an analogy about human life. How before we're born we all start at the top of the river and then we're separated into these individual drops and fall until we reach death and then we get to the bottom of the river.
“Whether it is separated into drops or not, water is water. Our life and death are the same thing. When we realize this fact we have no fear of death anymore, and we have no actual difficulty in our life.”
-Shunryu Suzuki, Zen Mind Beginner's Mind
And what's fascinating about this is we are each like a drop of that waterfall. Although we sometimes feel like we're separate from everyone, doing our own thing and living our own lives, ultimately we will all rejoin back down at the bottom of the river.
"You are not a drop in the ocean but you are the ocean in one drop."
-Rumi
Many ketamine patients experience deep insights and so begin to understand the concept of life and death.
How The Story Relates To Life, Death, & Ketamine
I found this concept really profound because sometimes I think about life, death, and the challenges that we face. And it’s all about knowing and really understanding that we were all around before we each became water droplets falling down the river and we'll continue to be around when we fall to the bottom of the river.
During a ketamine infusion, we have observed some of our patients experiencing deep insight and understanding into the nature of living in relation to death. They enter into the zen-like space, understanding that life and death are the same thing. They can recognize some of their frustration and anxiety stem from a fear of death or a fear of pain.
As our patients begin to see the big picture and experience the state of being both the droplet of water coming down the fall as well as being part of the vast universal body of water, they become inspired to make changes. These changes then become instilled in their thoughts, beliefs, and actions in everyday life that supports their healing journey.
Did you know that we are all droplets in a waterfall? How so? In this blog post, we talk about the story of the waterfall by zen master Shunryu Suzuki and it relates to life, death and one’s ketamine experience.