Christ says, “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.” Indeed, no seeker finds the way. The seeker follows winding paths to hidden places. The seeker thirsts for ornate gates, labyrinths, and secrets. The seeker seeks seeking, and what they seek, they find.
But straight is the gate and narrow is the way: too narrow for a thought to fit, too straight for wandering feet. Those who find it do so not by seeking far and wide but by arriving there from where every seeker first set out.
“The way, the truth, and the life” dwells on no horizon. It’s no esoteric ecstasy or world-transcending thought. It is not Allah, Buddha, Brahma, or the Christ. It is the smallest thing, smaller than a mustard seed, though pregnant with the world. It is that uncreated light that dwells in every child’s eyes.
May we see as children,
Simeon
“The way is perfect like vast space, where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess. Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject that we do not see the true nature of things.”
— Sengcan (Third Zen Patriarch), Xinxin Ming (“Faith in Mind”)
Suggested Reading
Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind by Shunryu Suzuki
In Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, Suzuki teaches that the perfect way is not to chase perfection. When we stop trying to reach life, we find that we were never apart from it. His idea of “beginner’s mind” (open, humble, unknowing) is a manual for returning to the immediacy that precedes thought.
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On the Nature of Now
Seekers must sooner or later grapple with the nature of Now. The journey into God is a perpetual opening up to the mysteries of Being. The Now is one such mystery, and an incredibly elusive one at that.