What might we gain by modeling ourselves after the talents we admire in others, once our own self-awareness has become clear? It’s a question we can see throughout history that others have looked to and found their way to what may be called the summit.
It’s not just reaching the mountain top, it’s when you can see yourself beyond the other side. Why storytellers and those who have conveyed the wisdom of the ages became so essential.
But first and foremost, the story belongs to the shaman and the far-reaching stars. We don’t give them the credit they have deserved as keepers of the eternal flame that light our way home.
We often underestimate or overlook our own talents, and just as importantly, we don’t always put in the effort to develop them. That’s why mentors and the people we turn to for guidance have such a big influence on shaping who we are and, if we’re paying attention, are here for who we’re meant to become. The heart of it is that the Tao becomes an awareness that deepens what we’ve already experienced and understood. To the place I think of as our eternal memories, guiding us to see things in context, to understand the role of attachments, and to realize that anything valued by the world’s standards can never truly reach the Tao.
It’s letting go so that either we find the next step or when the next step finds us. For me, it means looking not only to the stories of Lieh Tzu and traveling on the winds of eternity, but also to the teachings of Chuang Tzu and how they spread from Chan Buddhism in China to Zen in Japan, guiding us toward what we should understand as self-awareness. 
Why having mentors like Alan Wats and his book “The Way of Zen”, becomes not only essential reading but the focus of intensive study. To a line from Chuang Tzu that details our fate I especially like is:
“I have traveled this way and that, but I still only know where it begins. I have roamed around as I wished within its mind-bending vastnesses. I know how to get there but I don’t know where they end.”
For Chuang Tzu, the Tao is the ultimate, both in its cosmic nature and in revealing the underlying unity of all life. It is the source of all things, the force that nourishes them and the place to which they return. To grasp the Tao is to recognize the sameness in all things. Here, through stories and examples, we came to understand that letting go of attachments no longer needed for the journey is essential. Where the Tao becomes pure awareness, as you find yourself traveling on the wind with Lieh Tzu once again.
My travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Chapter Eight – Explaining Conjunctions
143. Beyond the throes of Resentment
Continually coming into the realm of others one cannot help but to be attracted to attachments. Attachments that help to create the image of all things being the same. A comforting sameness creating a uniformity that finds patterns we can simply fall into. Instead of falling away losing that we cling to, we constantly are seen trying to gain them. 
Our only sense of self becoming how we see ourselves being seen by others.
Finding comfort in the oh so too familiar. Envying others for what we may lack or have failed to find quite yet for ourselves. Always in the end finding resentment as we condition ourselves to seek that which is outside ourselves as a substitute for what lies within.
Haven’t we seen all this before in our travels with Lieh Tzu? As you are reminded of the story Lieh Tzu has told you of an old man of Fox Hill that he in turn is seen telling to his friend Sun Shu‑ao.
Sun Shu‑ao is at a loss for words and comes to the old man telling him what troubles him deep in his heart. Sun Shu‑ao has two sons who are both about the same age. One is quite talented, and it seems that everything the boy does comes easily to him. School, girls, athletics, even the classical musical instrument, the luan he has mastered. However, his other son has trouble with everything. Even expressing himself and finding his place in the world. What was he to do as the youngest son held a deep resentment towards his older brother and his many talents?
“There are three things which man resents, do you know them,” the old man said to Sun Shu‑ao. Sun Shu‑ao asked what he meant and what could this have to do with his sons? The old man of Fox Hill told him: “It is wrong for your younger son to compare himself to the talents of his older brother. That in the end what can matter? 
If your rank is high, others will envy you. If your office is great, your prince will hate you. If your salary is large resentment will live with you.
Go home and tell your youngest son that he is free of those things that would keep him from finding enlightenment that he has an opportunity to discover only through finding himself.”
Sun Shu‑ao went home and told both his sons what the old man had told him. For the first time his youngest son began to look beyond the comparisons that before he couldn’t meet and for the first time began to find himself. While Sun Sho‑ao’s oldest son in recognizing the needs of his family and his love for his younger brother, told them that the higher his rank the humbler his ambitions would be the greater his office he may someday attain, the more meticulous he would be and the larger his salary the further his bounty would extend. He would always keep his promise to remember his responsibility to his family. He concluded by saying that if he acted this way, he could not avoid the three causes of resentment.
Pleased at the direction his family now aspired to, Sun Shu‑ao went back to the old man and told him of his meeting with his sons and expressed his hope for the future. 8/18/95
Number one hundred forty-three of one hundred fifty-eight entries.
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