Writing a commentary on something written over thirty years ago is a challenge. Over time and many travels and much writing that in affect is autobiographical, with the ultimate paradox always seemingly present. Who you are now is not who you have been or will be in the future. Over the centuries this is always the central question of someone who has seen where memories and the future may lead and asking how to best prepare for the journey ahead. I had been writing for about four months (Jan – Apr 1994) and this has consumed my thoughts and actions for over thirty years. This is not a hobby or what appears to be an advocation, this is something that inspired me to see that there was something more from my past that I had been missing. That up to now my not fitting into the present was telling me that I was forgetting something important.
That I wouldn’t find it until I had found myself first. Being guided by the wisdom of sages of the past from ancient China was to become the roadmap I was to follow. That I was to learn that while I was to become a teacher for others, I was first to become my own teacher with the help of voices from the past. What my experience teaching in China was to convey was that in order to teach others I must first know my subject. That when I knew it thoroughly, I was to convey the meaning of what I was teaching through my own experience and memories.
The ancients have always said that when the student to ready the teacher appears. Often this seems a conundrum as it sometimes seems we are waiting for the teacher however when we are ready the teacher becomes us. What deters us becomes the attachments that living brings to our doorstep every day. Early Taoism was to speak of how we are to truly care for our life. I really like Chuang Tzu’s story about the cook Ting who was cutting up an ox for King Hui of Wei. He explained that he goes along with the natural makeup, striking his knife with a natural rhythm as though he was performing the dance of the Mulberry Grove. He says that what he cares about is the Way, or Tao, which goes beyond skill. He doesn’t see the whole ox; he goes at it by spirit and doesn’t look with his eyes. Perception and understanding have come to a stop and spirit moves where it wants. He follows the natural makeup of things as they are. Just as we are to do the same.
This excerpt is from Chuang Tzu’s Basic Writings translated By Burton Watson. I encourage you to get his book.
Voices of the Dragon Part 2 Number 14
Remaining Unattached
Stay only as the sage. Unconsumed by material wealth and things deemed as unimportant to the world of the immortals.
The dragons only look to see the progress of those seriously proceeding on their journey. Things that interfere with the progress to be made today only delays where we are going tomorrow and the time of our arrival.
Remain unattached to the seeming reality to be found in the world as it becomes expected by you by others as you proceed through your everyday endeavors. Disappear into the oneness discovered in the Tao and be found in the eternal ways of nature as nature would have it and find comfort.
Remain simply as an empty jug to be filled. Letting nothing interfere with the flow of water when it comes outside the boundaries of what is expected.
Maintain a healthy distance between yourself and others not familiar with the ways of your journey. There is much to be said for one who only keeps to the high road forgoing that which may turn out to be injurious to yourself and others.
Remain only as before as you remember from where you came. As the reclusive sage, following the Tao on a personal quest. The agent of change through which the world comes to know balance and the eternal cosmos. Simply remembering that you have seen it all before and will again. Stay at the point of mediation with all and truly become one with them. 4/16/94
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