Sunday, April 17, 2011

No Conditions to Meet

No Conditions to Meet
by Scott Bradley


For me, one of the most powerful teachings in Zhouzi's Simple Way is simply this: There are no conditions to meet. I consider it daily, and it brings me joy and thankfulness. It is at the heart of my philosophy and my practice. It is my gate.

There are no conditions to meet to realize Unity. This is but another way to say: All dualism is falsely imagined. It is already true for you. You need not become something other than you are. You need not change your behavior -- become 'good' or 'spiritual'. You need not do anything. This simple fact seems ineluctably true if one intuits the non-dual nature of Reality.

This unity is not potential; it is actual. The totality of your existential expression is 'Tao' manifest. Your every thought, feeling, deed is 'Tao' manifest. However apparently removed you may feel yourself to be from harmony with 'Tao' this is likewise 'Tao' manifest.

'Try this on' and you, like me, will probably have a head-on collision with right and wrong. This is why I have spoken so much about transcending the tyranny of right and wrong. The mind screams No!, this cannot be. It would be wrong to dismiss right and wrong -- right and wrong just won't have it, just as self cannot dismiss itself.

The world would run amok. Murder and pillage would sweep across the land. The great irony, of course, is that right and wrong has been the greatest motive force for harm that the world has seen. And a greater irony still is that to transcend it is to be free to realize the aims of right and wrong as right and wrong can never do.

Yes, this stumbling block always emerges, but the real issue is not morality or a moral philosophy -- it is about harmony and acceptance within your own heart. It's about saying yes to you, just as you are, because just as you are is just as Reality is. Let nothing stop you: Affirm yourself, your most intimate experience of 'Tao'.

Would you change? Would you know harmony and peace? Then you can do no better than to begin by affirming yourself just now, just as you are, as expression of 'Tao'.

This is my way, and, as usual, I have presumed to recommend it to you. But I sincerely believe that there are as many paths as there are feet to walk them, and will thus further presume to suggest that you find the way that your heart recommends to you.

I have said this many times before and I hope you will forgive me for saying it all again. It's just that it seems like the most important thing I could say.

You can check out Scott's other miscellaneous writings here.

1 comment:

  1. That is it. In my own way that is what I say too.

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