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What is the way?
The clear-eyed person falls into a well.

—PZI Miscellaneous Koans Case 74b

Layman Pang and his daughter Lingzhao were selling bamboo baskets. Coming down off a bridge he stumbled and fell. When Lingzhao saw this she ran to her father’s side and threw herself on the ground.
“What are you doing?” cried the Layman.
“I saw Daddy fall down, so I’m helping,“ replied Lingzhao.
“Luckily no one was looking,“ remarked the Layman.

—From the Recorded Sayings of Layman Pang

These two koans take us places—down, down, down the well; falling, falling, and then off the bridge; stumbling, falling into a ditch.

There is a magic in the moment when we meet. In unadorned meeting, life meets life. Lingzhao throws herself down to the ground with her father. She takes the “exquisite risk” to fall down too, to be there in life apart from her beliefs, ideas, the need to justify herself as kind or helpful.

Many of us sang this nursery rhyme in kindergarten:

Ring around the Rosie,
A pocket full of posies,
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.

And that’s it: If we are all in for life, we will fall.

When I fall it is always a surprise. I step onto the front sidewalk on a winter’s day, a fleeting thought as I tumble down: “Black ice.” After the crash landing I look up, laughing out loud: “That’s not what I expected.” Or I can be working in the kitchen with a new friend, our hands accidentally touch, and I find I care for her deeply even though we just met. Falling onto the ground, falling in love. We all fall down, bidding adieu to the realm of the expected, the life we thought we had. The world becomes new, uncertain and unpredictable.

Finding myself in this place, often I will say to myself, “This is not what I signed up for.” A friend dies and I wake up in grief. A relationship ends; I am no longer who I thought I was. Your child is born and you fall into something you could not know: fatherhood, motherhood. A friend of mine sits on the porch watching the sun rise, and her world pivots: all is new. We fall into grace.

The truth? It is never what we sign up for. Life is uncertain, dark. Expectations fall away, desires shed. We fall into not knowing. And this is it—the vastness, grace, love, God—doesn’t matter what you call it. As Dylan sang, “It’s life and life only.”

Together we rest in the Dao, the continual unfolding, the life that is always changing. With luck we fall down together and wake up. The universe calls roll. “Here!” we respond.

—David Parks