Oh, Amelia! I truly believe that you have hit on one of the "fundamental principles of the universe", why the world is the way it is, a point that (modern science and Buddhist teachings would fully agree) explains why the universe can be the universe. Yes, if everything were frozen solid like ice or stone (which even move and flow, by the way, although too slowly for human eyes to see) ... if there were not the change and movement and "things constantly bumping into things" of life ... there would be no life, no universe, no happenings, no growth, no evolution of species, no you and me. "All is impermanent, all composite things change", and that is necessary to life, to our being alive.
Perhaps our Zen way is to embody the fact that, though things are "far from perfect" to our human eyes perhaps (not always the way we like it, and sometimes so ugly to our eyes), they are perfectly-imperfectly just what they are. Though the universe is in constant motion, there is also a Stillness in motion and stillness. Though one of those boulders, from time to time, might roll right over us or the ice melt and sweep us away in its flow (and we will not be too happy about it, and try to stay out of the way, feeling about ice like the captain of the Titanic
) ... we can simultaneously learn to roll with it, go with the flow ... be the flowing, experience that we are the very rolling-flowing-stillness of life-death-no life-no death.
But, yes, sometimes even master swimmers might lose their balance and sink in the flow.
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Anyway, this movement toward "teachers" and "everybody on a first name basis" is a very Western, Yankee, modern thing. Don't misunderstand, because I think it a very good development. But back in old Asia, which were very "top-down" societies in places like China, Japan, Tibet and Korea, "master" meant just that in everything from Zen to the martial arts to being an apprentice blacksmith. One did not question one's master (not directly to his face, anyway ... something still very true in modern Japan) and if one's master told you to "jump" then you jump (even off a cliff). So, though a modern and Western development, I think it good to loosen that up into the role of teacher with something to teach.
Yes, I believe that applied even to images of the Buddha who, while denying that he was "merely" a god (gods actually come below Buddhas in most Buddhist rankings) was assigned (in about all the Sutta and Sutra writings about him, even the earliest although increasing as time passed) all the superpowers, omniscience and perfections of character that human beings could imagine up. I am very glad too that modern eyes may start to consider that the historical Buddha may have been just a man too, although a very gifted and insightful one ... but that also there is another perspective on "Buddha" that is as I described above ...
You see, human beings (even human Buddhas and Master Walkers) can be the most graceful walkers, yet sometimes fall down. Of course, a true Master Walker should not fall down too much and know how to roll with the fall. But simultaneously, in a Buddha's Eye, there is no place to fall, no up or down, nobody to do the falling, never was or will be ... right in the heart of the falling. 
Gassho, J
Perhaps our Zen way is to embody the fact that, though things are "far from perfect" to our human eyes perhaps (not always the way we like it, and sometimes so ugly to our eyes), they are perfectly-imperfectly just what they are. Though the universe is in constant motion, there is also a Stillness in motion and stillness. Though one of those boulders, from time to time, might roll right over us or the ice melt and sweep us away in its flow (and we will not be too happy about it, and try to stay out of the way, feeling about ice like the captain of the Titanic
) ... we can simultaneously learn to roll with it, go with the flow ... be the flowing, experience that we are the very rolling-flowing-stillness of life-death-no life-no death. But, yes, sometimes even master swimmers might lose their balance and sink in the flow.
=============================
Anyway, this movement toward "teachers" and "everybody on a first name basis" is a very Western, Yankee, modern thing. Don't misunderstand, because I think it a very good development. But back in old Asia, which were very "top-down" societies in places like China, Japan, Tibet and Korea, "master" meant just that in everything from Zen to the martial arts to being an apprentice blacksmith. One did not question one's master (not directly to his face, anyway ... something still very true in modern Japan) and if one's master told you to "jump" then you jump (even off a cliff). So, though a modern and Western development, I think it good to loosen that up into the role of teacher with something to teach.
Yes, I believe that applied even to images of the Buddha who, while denying that he was "merely" a god (gods actually come below Buddhas in most Buddhist rankings) was assigned (in about all the Sutta and Sutra writings about him, even the earliest although increasing as time passed) all the superpowers, omniscience and perfections of character that human beings could imagine up. I am very glad too that modern eyes may start to consider that the historical Buddha may have been just a man too, although a very gifted and insightful one ... but that also there is another perspective on "Buddha" that is as I described above ...
... beyond all error and mistake, totally one with the universe, always doing what is to be done in every situation, always speaking with a Buddha's tongue, never possibly to trip or fall, at total peace and harmony and wholeness with all this self-life-world, each and all Golden Buddhas and Perfect Jewels.
Gassho, J
and good to hear it Treena 
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