One Tiny Ember I

Scott Bradley

I feel like I am about to say something I shouldn't, though I say something like it in nearly every post. What is it? Something truth-full, though it really has nothing to do with truth. I'll share it by way of metaphor. Here, look quickly as I momentarily uncup my hands — did you see it? A tiny ember — the only thing I 'believe'. In need of a name, I'll call it Unity. Amidst all these words, it is only this that ceaselessly glows.

Think of Dao as the One Reality that cannot be thought. Feel Dao as water invited to fill the entirety of you. Feel it flow into every crevice, fill every gap, making no distinction between one part of your mind and another, one thought or another. It is the All that permeates all. It is Unity; it is you. This Unity is already true of you. There were never any conditions you had to meet to make it true of you. How could you, or anything else, ever deviate from Dao? You are, in your entirety, just as you now are, utterly acceptable, completely included — Dao. In the realization of this is unspeakable freedom and joy.

Yes, All cannot permeate all, if it is already All. This is all just dualistic metaphor; there is no other way to speak it. No, we need not speak of Dao, or God, or Buddha, or any other conceptual entity — they all just stand for a Oneness we cannot imagine. We give it a name that we might speak of it. You know the drill.

If I had a ‘teaching’, this alone would be it. But I have no teaching, for I am not a ‘teacher’; and I am not a teacher, because I only aspire to fully realize what I seemingly presume to ‘teach’. This is my path; and a path presumes a pilgrimatic journey, not an arrival.

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