Depending on Nothing V

Scott Bradley

Here is a way that requires no belief. Nothing has to be true. Indeed, were something required to be true, it would not be this way. It does not presume to understand anything about supposed Reality. It has no answers. It requires no Dao, no God, no Universal Mind, no I Am. It conceives of no salvation; it knows of nothing to save. It is free of exteriorized and imposed purpose, hope, meaning. It is not about anything other than one's own conscious experience. It does not require explanations of this experience — why it is, where it comes from, where it leads. It is enough that it is experienced.

It is just a way. It could not be otherwise. There are as many ways as there are feet to walk them. Yet it does not subscribe to the belief that all ways lead to the summit of truth. It climbs an altogether different mountain. It is just a way to live.

It is a way to live how? In "far and unfettered wandering". What is this? I don't know. I can only imagine. I have only an inkling. It is unfettered freedom. What are the fetters? Our fear. It is not death, but the fear of death. It is not life, but the fear of life. It is not pain, but the fear of pain. It is not humiliation, but the fear of humiliation. It is not failure, but the fear of failure. It is not success, but the fear of its emptiness. Freedom is not the absence of the things we fear, but their acceptance in affirmation. Freedom is to be free of every dependency in the midst of total dependency. Limitlessness is not the absence of the limited, but freedom within the limited.

Yet none of this takes place within a vacuum. There is something here: the experience of life. This life that we are has its given way. Free of every imposition of should and the fetters of fear, it lives. It expresses itself. Thankfulness arises. Joy happens. The birds sing. The wild tom turkey outside my window even at this moment fans his tail, struts and gobbles for the nearby hen. Silence speaks when we depend on no echo.

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