The Tao of Dark Sages - Chapter 3, Part 9

The Tao of Dark Sages
by Scott Bradley

Sue-tzu! Did I hear right; you no longer consider yourself awakened?!

Yes, you heard right. Why? Does this shock you? Why does it matter? You are not attached to me or my words are you?

I don’t know. I didn’t think so, but maybe I am. I mean, what’s the point of sitting before someone to learn how to be awakened when the person teaching isn’t awakened? And yes, I know I can’t ‘learn’ how to be awakened and you aren’t ‘teaching’!

Ha, ha. Perhaps if I clarify we can smooth your feathers a bit—but not too much—there remains the issue of attachment. I honestly don’t know what the purportedly awakened have experienced, since only they, individually, have experienced it, but my guess is that what they have experienced, I have experienced. The difference is simply that I have come to understand that no such state exists in stasis.

Put simply: Awaken-ing, for me, is a process and will always remain a process. Even after satori or enlightenment or whatever you might want to call the sudden turning about which we also know as awakening—even after these, there is still process. And this process is awaken-ing. I believe I quoted Chuang-tzu before: “Great understanding comes in and I don’t know when it will end.” It would be a peculiar thing indeed if in all the universe, within the Tao of Nature, there was this one state of being that did not flow with the stream of perpetual change. Don’t you think?

Yes, I see your point. Though I am going to have to think about it for awhile. And my feathers feel smoother.

Good. As for the attachment issue, well, if you are thinking things through and weighing them carefully, then you are dealing with that already.

If you're interested in reading more from this series by Scott Bradley, go here.