Two modern teachers, working in entirely different traditions, both reached for the same picture: a wave on the ocean. Nisargadatta Maharaj (say "nih-sar-guh-dah-tuh muh-hah-rahj") told students that their own minds are just waves on the ocean of consciousness, rising and passing, while the ocean itself is what never rises or falls. Thich Nhat Hanh (say "tik naht hahn") used the same image differently: a wave afraid of ending doesn't need to go looking for water, because she was already water the whole time, never anything else. Neither teacher invented this image from an ancient scripture, and neither owns it exclusively; it just keeps getting rediscovered because it's useful. You feel like a small, separate wave rushing into a stressful morning easily enough, late for something, dreading an email. Before you answer that feeling, take one breath and ask what in you was never actually rising or falling with the day's first disturbance at all.