By Dr. Rick Hanson // 1 Rivers flow and eddies form. An eddy is a relatively stable pattern whose elements continually change. It is “standing-streaming,” a term from Evan Thompson’s marvelous book, Mind in Life. All eddies disperse eventually. 2 In a river, an eddy depends on many conditions. These include: The state of the eddy itself just one moment ago The shape of the riverbed, nearby boulders, water flows immediately upstream, and the amount of snowfall last winter. Going back and back, those conditions depend on the history of the earth, the solar system, the universe. Countless molecules of water 3 Molecules depend on atoms, such as hydrogen and oxygen. Almost all atoms heavier than helium depend on the stars which made them, mainly while exploding. A river is fluid stardust. A particle of any size is congealed energy. A river is a flow of light. 4 Atoms depend on subatomic particles made from quarks. Quarks are made from even smaller entities – perhaps infinitesimal vibrating strings – that comprise the substrate of the physical …