The Tao of Dark Sages - Chapter 24

The Tao of Dark Sages
by Scott Bradley

The night before our departure to Katmandu we sat long in silence just watching the turning of the stars. It’s curious how something so vast and incomprehensible can seem so familiar. Yet being one, how could it not be so? We are indeed, ‘star dust’; for it is from the death of stars that the elements arose from which our bodies are made. As for this mind? Who can say? And why do we ask?

Gabi: We are going to miss you.

Scott-tzu: Is that Tao-ful?

Gabi: It’s real-ful. Is that Tao-ful, Mark-tzu?

Mark-tzu: I won’t miss being the final authority on things Tao-ful, that’s for sure. Come to ‘la-la land’ and find out for yourself.

Scott-tzu: It seems so strange; I’ve been chasing after you two for years now, hoping to learn from your wisdom, and here I am going off with Sue-tzu...

Sue-tzu: Maybe that’s because you’ve nothing else to ‘learn’. You can’t be a companion and lover to your guru.

Scott-tzu: Maybe so, but I’ve come to relish those times when you tell me you won’t or needn’t teach me — because it’s a sure thing that some wisdom is about to issue forth!

Mark-tzu: Scott-tzu enjoys his adolescence so much, he refuses to grow out of it.

Sue-tzu: When you put it that way, I wonder why he should.

Scott-tzu: Yeah, why should I?

Mark-tzu: Who said ‘should’? If Sue-tzu can live with you, then more power to you both.

(More star-gazing)

Gabi: Before you go, I want to hear about losing your faith. Have you lost yours, Tzu-tzu?

Scott-tzu: It’s a work in progress. I’ve lots of beliefs, but it’s the most fundamental belief that I sometimes see more clearly now. Yet it’s so hard to find and hold in the light. I see it’s manifestations more easily. It’s belief in enlightenment. And belief in the Tao. Belief in everything that we’ve said and re-said over these years of discussing. Tomorrow, it will be belief in what I am saying now.

Mark-tzu: You could wipe your feet on the mat before the ‘gateless gate’.

Scott-tzu: We talk about the Tao. We quote Chuang-tzu who talked about the Tao: “To talk of the Tao is not to know the Tao.” But what does that really mean? That the Tao is ungraspable and unknowable, yes. But in the heart, what does it mean? That one must dwell in utter emptiness. The Tao is found in emptiness because the Tao is emptiness. And even this, becomes an object of faith.

Sue-tzu: Emptiness abides neither knowledge nor belief nor Tao.

Mark-tzu: In emptiness there is no Tao.

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