Your body is merely a cloak you wear while you interact with others in a physical world. The sage has a level of understanding that allows seeing one's true self beyond the cloak worn.~ Yesterday's Daily Quote from Advice from Lao Fzu ~
We each wear different hats (or cloaks) as we move through each day. We can be the child, parent, partner, coworker, colleague, customer, neighbor, friend and/or stranger. Often, depending on the hat worn, we comport ourselves in different ways.
I recently shed one of my cloaking devices; I shaved off my mustache and goatee! I do this every 12 months or so to allow my face to breath. However, both have already begun the process of regrowth and, in no time at all, my appearance will return to what people are more used to.
It's funny, but most of the people I've run into around town can't seem to figure out what looks different about me. People have asked me if a) I've lost weight, b) Cut the hair on the top of my head or c) I'm wearing a different outfit. Only a very few people have noticed that my face is lacking its usual facial hair.
Consequently, many have interacted with me differently, yet they don't know why!
There's no great philosophical point to my musings right now. Perhaps, you should concentrate on the quote from Lao Fzu instead!!
I recently shed one of my cloaking devices; I shaved off my mustache and goatee! I do this every 12 months or so to allow my face to breath. However, both have already begun the process of regrowth and, in no time at all, my appearance will return to what people are more used to.
It's funny, but most of the people I've run into around town can't seem to figure out what looks different about me. People have asked me if a) I've lost weight, b) Cut the hair on the top of my head or c) I'm wearing a different outfit. Only a very few people have noticed that my face is lacking its usual facial hair.
Consequently, many have interacted with me differently, yet they don't know why!
There's no great philosophical point to my musings right now. Perhaps, you should concentrate on the quote from Lao Fzu instead!!
I've come across the idea of the cloak, shell or mask in more modern interpretations of Tao but not in the old works. I think the idea has come from the Hindus who go on at length over this concept. Modern writers have found it works well in expanding the Taoist perspective too.
ReplyDeleteI once wrote it as a layer of egg-shells, maybe more like a Russian nesting doll now I think of it... The person has so many layers; their sports club, job, office, car, garden, house, wife, kids, clothes, haircut, outward appearance, outward projection of beliefs, inner layer of protective ego... and so we work inward to a very soft and gooey, weak, sloppy self image, wrapped in these layers of "I'm great because of"'s
The person who does inner work has the true core so fully recognised that they can shake the mask and say "look I am free" - and when they say "stop watching TV, stop believing the crap, you don't need a big car to be happy, do less - BE more..." they get strange looks, as the audience are looking for new shells over the old and not to cast any aside.