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a pond, not a symbol of anything. But it is ancient; it’s been around for a long time; it carries the past in its present. The frog is first of all a frog, again not a symbol of anything; it is in the present. So both the frog and the pond together are in the present. The frog leaping is first of all a frog leaping, not a symbol of anything; the present moves. Then “the sound of water” is first of all the sound water makes when a frog leaps in—not a “plop” or a “bloop,” though that is the way it is sometimes translated. In the Japanese the phrase is not onomatopoetic; it is just a phrase like “the sound of water.” And that’s important, for “the sound of water” makes no waterlike sound. The physical sound of the frog entering the water is not the sound of the words “the sound of water.” The sound of the intersection of past and present is no sound, for sound takes time, vibrations are matter in motion. The interface between past and present is not itself a part of matter in motion. 12
    By reading this poem, revisioning its setting and entering into its spirit, we can be teased out of thought. Our aesthetic experience then becomes a glimpse into what I take to be a major part of the experience of satori. So pause again: imbibe, read and reread this haiku. I am not suggesting this because I want to promote a totally Zen view of reality, but because there is an element of truth in it. Like a Zen Buddhist, we live in the present. Often we miss it. Let’s allow ourselves a doorway into recognizing its subtle reality.
    Here are several more haikus I have found as doorways into an appreciation of the present. I enjoy Bashō’s haikus because they alert me not to the Void but to God’s marvelous creation and the glories inherent in each moment. After all, there would be no conscious present if God had not created the world to be what it is and we to be what we are. If there are ancient ponds and frogs leaping, if there are crows on branches, if there are seasons, if there are gulls that cry out, then these haiku can help us see them in their presentness to us. 13
          On the withered branch
          A crow has alighted—
          Nightfall in autumn.
          The sea darkens,
          The cries of the sea gulls
          Are faintly white.
          Such stillness—
          The cries of the cicadas
          Sink into the rocks.
    Still, if we are to be responsible in the way we do our worldview analysis, we must also see these haiku as presentations of Zen. As such they give us a glimpse into the mindset of many other people, not just from Japan but from everywhere that Zen Buddhism has influenced people’s minds and lives.
    Cultural Analysis
    When we turn to worldview analysis as cultural analysis, we turn from the narrow specificity of one person’s worldview to the broad, much vaguer worldviews that characterize large numbers of people across considerable time and space. As noted above, worldviews have a public as well as a private character. The intent of The Universe Next Door has been to isolate the major worldviews that have a cultural embodiment primarily in Europe and the Americas. I have isolated seven such worldviews: Christian theism, deism, naturalism, nihilism, existentialism, Eastern pantheistic monism, the New Age and the most recent worldview shift, postmodernism. I have described these in broad strokes and do not need to do that again here.
    But I do want to emphasize that these broad strokes both miss the finer points of our individual worldviews and somewhat misrepresent any one person’s worldview. Even the way I have described the Christian worldview may constitute only my version of that worldview. In fact, there are times when I wonder if my description really fits me, for any one person’s worldview is somewhat fluid. It is constantly under the pressure of being worked . We often do not live up to our so-called best lights. What we say we