Looking Back to 2006: Beyond the Boundary

Beyond the Boundary
Original post date: January 19, 2006

Our life has a boundary, but there is no boundary to knowledge. To use what has a boundary to pursue what is limitless is dangerous.
So says Chuang Tzu (Chapter 3).

It's natural for people to want to know where they come from. We want to know how we fit into things and if we were planned. These are powerful questions and go along way toward explaining why a great many adopted children spend a lot of time and money trying to find their birth parents.

Yet, as Chuang Tzu aptly points out, there's a limit to what a human being can comprehend. While it's one thing to want to find your birth parent, it's quite another to try to understand the why and how all life began on this little orb.

And let's get down to brass tacks. No one knows now nor will ever know what sparked life from nothingness. It doesn't matter if you are a devoutly religious person, a philosophical Taoist or an atheist. It is a type of knowledge that is beyond the realm of human understanding.

Since it's impossible to understand, Chuang Tzu suggests you quit trying to figure it out. All you're doing is wasting precious moments of your finite time on earth.

Concentrate on what you can learn and comprehend; forget about what you can never know.

To read the intro to this retrospective series of posts, go here.