Pushing past what seems impossible is a journey of vision, talent, and determination—going where others believe you can’t but doing it anyway. 
As Don Quixote said, we are to strive “to dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe”. When we look past the present and envision our potential, we often realize we can achieve it. The key usually lying within us we see as lack and limitation, as the unbeatable foe waiting to be revealed. It’s usually that spark of imagination that tells us what can be, that prods us to go there.
As a city planner and neighborhood specialist in Florida, before pursuing interests in China that eventually led me to teaching in Qufu, I often thought or asked where the light within each of us resides and how it is ignited or revealed. What and where is the spark within each of us, and once we believe we’ve discovered it, what should we do next, and how can we define it? For lack of a better name, it can be called the portal.
I think about the mentors in our lives and the lessons they’ve shared, guiding us toward who we are becoming and helping us to express what might be considered universal. I also ask the question are these mentors asking us to become transcendent, to acknowledge both our own personal growth and spiritual enfoldment. I wonder.
We often think of a portal as a doorway or as a means of entry, often as an entrance, even a portal of knowledge and wisdom. As the ultimate path to a destination that opens another door, perhaps many as the gateway works both ways, allowing spirit to flow freely enabling us to learn to share a part of ourselves with others. Just as they share of themselves with us.
It is when we sit in the silence of nature simply becoming one with what we hear, see, and touch. No better or worse than any of what we call the ten thousand things. When we think of our mentors, I like to think of Henry David Thoreau and his famous Walden Pond that was on a plot of land given to him by his friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. Thoreau was a great writer and had a lot to say about man’s/our role in nature and beyond. Below is a picture of Walden’s Pond in Concord, Massachusetts. Often in my meditation and writing I like to think I’m there with him sharing ideas and stories. as he always has a lot to say. An exercise I repeat frequently with both old and new friends who are always anxious to share another story. Lieh Tzu below is always like that too.
One of Thoreau’s most famous quotes was that we are to:
“Simplify your life. Don’t waste the years struggling for things that are unimportant. Don’t burden yourself with possessions. Keep your needs and wants simple and enjoy what you have. Don’t destroy your peace of mind by looking back, worrying about the past. Live in the present. Simplify!”
Another quote I especially like (and there are many) is “Life isn’t about finding yourself; it’s about creating yourself. So, live the life you imagined.”
For me, this idea circles back to the concept of the portal—something within us that propels us and others beyond what we ever thought possible and going there. To always being seen in the process of creating… And knowing we’re not done yet.
My travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Chapter Eight – Explaining Conjunctions
134. Questions of Loyalty
Which can be the proper way? By staying true to the Tao or remaining loyal, true and to personal integrity as Confucius would have us do? How can we confuse loyalty, what remains true and our personal integrity with that which is found in the Tao? Confucius sent Tzu‑lu to ask the man who then answered:
“The waterfall is over two hundred feet high; the whirlpool covers ninety miles, fish and turtles cannot swim here, and crocodiles cannot live here. I would suggest it may be too difficult to cross. The man chuckled to himself, paid no notice to Tzu‑lu and jumped in, crossed over and came out on the far side none the worst of it.”
Confucius and a few of his followers were returning from Wei to Lu and rested on a bridge over a large river enjoying the view. There was a waterfall more than two hundred feet high and ninety miles of whirlpool.
The place was so inhospitable that fish and turtles could not swim there, even crocodiles would not live in this place. Just then they noticed a man about to jump in with the intent to swim across to the other side.
Confounded, Confucius questioned the man when he caught up with him and asked:
“Amazing, what skills you must possess. Have you some special talent? How could you maneuver through such difficult waters?”
The man responded:
“When I first enter, I start by being loyal to the water, and when I come out, I continue to be loyal and true to it. By throwing my body into the current, I do not act selfishly. That is how I can get out again once I am in.”
Overwhelmed, Confucius tells his followers that through loyalty, truth and personal integrity, we can make friends even with water, not to speak of men! While the swimmer put his faith in the Tao of the water and only his becoming one with it. 8/13/95
Number one hundred thirty-four of one hundred fifty-nine entries.
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