Flying Without Wings, Part 6

FLYING WITHOUT WINGS:
A COMMENTARY ON A PASSAGE IN THE ZHUANGZI, CHAPTER 4
by Scott Bradley

Good fortune comes to roost in stillness. To lack this stillness is called scurrying around even while sitting down. Allow your ears and eyes to open inward and thereby place yourself beyond your mind’s understanding consciousness.

The experience of stillness appears here as a given, a natural ‘consequence’ of the fasting of the mind and concentrat(ing) on the hollows. What is this stillness? Little more is said of it here except to contrast it to “scurrying around even while sitting down.”

This, of course, immediately brings to mind Zen’s ‘monkey mind’, the ceaseless stream of thought that forever keeps the mind engaged and thus unable to “place yourself beyond your mind’s understanding consciousness.” There is clearly a form of meditation implied here and whatever form it takes, the mind is stilled so as to “allow your ears and eyes to open inward” so as to go beyond the mind to what is most fundamental in you, your rootedness in the emptiness of qi.

What is this good fortune? It is the supreme good fortune of the sage who sees all ‘fortune’, ‘good’ or ‘bad’, as right and acceptable, for, securely established in the Mystery of all that is, no fortune can harm him.

Note: If you would like to read, print or download all 6 parts of this miniseries as one document replete with footnotes, here's the link to Google Docs.