Friday, March 22, 2013

Natural Healing

Scott Bradley


Shi, who had shown anger when he accidentally injured his foot while hoeing in the garden, came again to Cheng to understand how best to deal with shame. "Friend Cheng", said he, "yesterday you told me that my shame at throwing down my hoe was rooted in my desire for name, that I blamed myself because I felt myself diminished in my own eyes and in those of others. I understand how this is so, yet does this not impede my impetus to growth? Without shame, is one not left unmotivated."

"How is your foot today?" asked Cheng.

"It is already well on its path to healing; never was it serious despite my anger," answered Shi.

"If the body knows how to heal itself without your meddling, why not also your heart?" asked Cheng. "Only the heart, because it is so deeply injured by torturing habit, requires self-awareness for the healing to begin. Were there some foreign body lodged within your foot, until it is festered out, what healing could there be? In the light of understanding, the heart knows how to heal itself."

"Name, shame and blame," continued Cheng, "these three form that single thorn embedded in your heart. It is the view from Dao that will fester it out."

"But it is this view that evades me," replied Shi. "How do I find it?"

"Thinking it is other than all you think and do, you think you need to find it," answered Cheng. "Believing there is not-Dao, how is this different from thinking there is name to shame and blame? The view from Dao embraces all things just as they are; without the imposition of healing, the healing can begin."

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1 comment:

  1. This is brilliant. I fully believe in "getting out of my body's way" and letting it heal.

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