A single ripple—
Born from silence, touching all,
Gone before it ends.
The monastery sat at the edge of the cliffs, its wooden beams worn smooth by wind and time. It had been there longer than the village below, longer than the cobbled roads that led up the mountain, longer than the names of the men who once built it.
Inside, an old monk sat alone in the meditation hall.
His robes were simple, his breath steady, his presence neither demanding nor absent. Before him, a single candle flickered.
One flame, but not just one.
One flame, born from the match.
The match, born from the hand.
The hand, born from a body.
The body, born from something larger than itself.
He exhaled, and the candle wavered—not extinguished, but changed. As all things must be.
One Becomes Two, Two Becomes Three, Three Becomes All
Most people believe the world is made up of separate things—divided, distinct, individual.
But nothing exists alone.
- A single drop of rain becomes a river.
- A breath taken in becomes the breath given out.
- A moment of stillness shapes the moment of movement that follows.
There is no such thing as one.
There is only one, giving birth to another, giving birth to all things.
Life is neither complete nor incomplete, neither whole nor broken.
To be alone is not to be empty.
To be still is not to be absent.
To be nothing is to be part of everything.
The monk did not fight his solitude.
He let it dissolve into the world around him, until there was no difference between himself, the candle, the air, or the space in between.
Lessons from the Candle’s Flame
- Nothing is separate. All things are connected, whether we see it or not.
- To create is not to own. A spark does not control the fire it starts.
- What begins as one does not stay one. It flows, grows, becomes.
- Solitude is not a prison—it is a door.
- The quietest moment holds the entire universe inside it.
The monk stood, his shadow stretching across the wooden floor.
The candle flickered once more.
Then, without effort, without ceremony, he blew it out.
life 
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