Friday, May 27, 2011

Honesty

Honesty
by Scott Bradley


There is no Truth
In honesty.
There is no belief
In trust.

We speak of 'the honest truth' and there is such a thing, no doubt, but this 'saying' speaks of another kind of honesty and another kind of truth. This is the truth to which we might assign a capital 'T', Truth about things we cannot possibly know. In other words, this is about triumph over self-deception.

The honesty, therefore, to which this refers is the willingness to face the stark unknowns and unknowables of our apparent existence. Beginning here, I have called my philosophy of life a 'bare-bones' philosophy. It is an attempt at honesty. It is not easy to be honest; nor, indeed, could I ever claim to entirely be so.

As usual, all this is about me and my own particular pilgrimage -- it is where I find myself. It is not Truth. It may not be true for you. The reason I so enjoy Zhuangzi is that he seems to have had a similar point of departure, and he would be the first to tell you to just follow what works for you.

Without Truth, there is nothing to believe. Belief, for me, implies Truth. It requires an object; we have to believe in 'something'.

There is an alternative, however, and this is trust. Trust is the simple surrender of the heart to things as they are, whatever they are. One entrusts oneself to Mystery. One 'hides the world within the world', surrenders one's otherness, so that there is no longer anything that can be lost. Isn't this true peace and the absence of all fear?

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

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