Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Unmoored

Unmoored
by Scott Bradley


“The Radiance of Drift and Doubt is the sage’s only map.” In many ways this pretty much sums up Zhuangzi’s philosophy. Drift is what happens when one becomes unmoored from anything fixed. Doubt is that unmooring and what keeps one unmoored. The ultimate human expression of this is when the self becomes unmoored from itself. The entirety of experienced reality and each thing encountered within it become its momentary abode.

There is no longer a fixed-identity to defend itself against others because all that one encounters is also the self. This is “hiding the world in the world”. Where in the world can the world be lost?

But the object of this sentence is neither drift nor doubt, it is the Radiance that emerges from them that is the sage’s map. What is this Radiance? Perhaps it is something akin to Life allowed to freely flow—showing the way by unobstructedly being what it is.

You can check out Scott's writings on Zhuangzi here.

1 comment:

  1. UN-Moo-ed

    There once was a cow that walked the plains that had no name and was neither here nor there.
    All of a sudden a disturbing noise could be heard, what stood before this cow was a hungry bear
    The cow couldn't even get a chance to utter :-) a word as the claws from this beast began to tear
    Now all that remains of the poor cow is his skeleton and vulchers enjoying their portioned share

    This is what is known as being UN-Moo-ed and it is neither here nor there.

    ReplyDelete

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.