Stages of Awakening | A Taoist Account
“It was three years after I went to my master Lao-shang and my friend Pai-kao that my mind began to cease thinking of right and wrong, and my tongue talking of gain and loss, whereby [my teacher] favoured me with just a glance.
“At the end of five years my mind again began to think of right and wrong, and my tongue to talk about gain and loss. Then for the first time the master relaxed his expression and gave me a smile.
“At the end of seven years I just let my mind think of whatever it pleased, and there was no more question of right and wrong, I just let my tongue talk of whatever it pleased, and there was no more question of gain and loss. Then for the first time the master beckoned me to sit beside him.
“At the end of nine years, just letting my mind think of whatever it pleased and letting my tongue talk of whatever it pleased, I was not conscious whether I or anybody else was in the right or wrong, whether I or anybody else gained or lost; nor was I aware of the old master's being my teacher or the young Pai-kao's being my friend.
“Both inwardly and outwardly I was advanced. It was then that the eye was like the ear, and the ear like the nose, and the nose like the mouth; for they were all one and the same. The mind was in rapture, the form dissolved, and the bones and flesh all thawed away; and I did not know how the frame supported itself and what the feet were treading upon. I gave myself away to the wind, eastward or westward, like leaves of a tree or like a dry chaff.
“Was the wind riding on me or was I riding on the wind? I did not know either way.”
— Lieh-tzŭ
May we surrender to the unfolding wonder of the path,
Simeon
Quote of the Week
“You do not need to leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You do not even need to listen, just wait. You do not even need to wait, just learn to be quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked.”
— Franz Kafka (from his Notebooks)
One Step at a Time…
Lao Tzu says “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. But what about the second step, and the third, and the ones after that? Does a new journey begin with each? And once you pass the thousandth mile, where will your journey be if not within your next step?
Suggested Reading
Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen
Where do path and presence meet? In The Snow Leopard, Peter Matthiessen chronicles a Himalayan trek that becomes a meditation on death, silence, and the invisible sacred. (National Book Award Winner, 1980)
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