Day of the Mounds, 27th Day of Hagwinter, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse):  The water-rights wars in Texas are pitting agriculture against industry against municipalities. The wetter parts of the states fight to protect “their” water from thirsty and fast-growing cities. Recently, grass-roots groups in rural Georgia organized to prevent Atlanta from tapping water in their part of the state, and legislation prohibiting "inter-basin transfers" of water was introduced in the state capitol. The premise behind the ban was that if the rain didn't fall in your river basin, you had no right to expect to tap into the bounty of other basins. "Already," an transfer-ban proponent wrote, "thirsty Atlanta is looking to stick its long straw into convenient nearby water basins." As resources dwindle, meaningful action will be even more difficult if water conservation comes to be seen as a partisan issue.  

A thunder shower
In the middle of a fight
About water rights
(adapted from a haiku by "Homeless" Kōdō Sawaki) 

Beyond the mere irony of a thunder shower occurring in the middle of a fight over water, when the sky suddenly darkens and the rain begins, people lose their reason for fighting. The fight was conditioned on the state of drought, and when conditions change and the drought is no longer present, the fighting over water can stop (and we can start fighting over high ground to avoid floodwater). 

Commenting on his poem, Kōdō said, "Imagine looking back on our lives after we die. We’ll see that so many things didn’t matter."

As Shohaku Okumura points out, when we die we return to oneness, just as all rivers eventually flow into the ocean. In fact, rivers and ocean are both manifestations of the larger circulation of water. Depending on our perspective, we can see them as separate or as one. When we abandon our self-centered attitudes and live without being driven by our own desires and aversions, a way beyond duality manifests itself. And when we see the true interdependent reality of all beings, we can relax and open our clinging minds. We can then each sit in our own caskets and view things from nonduality, or complete interconnectedness.