The first chapter of the Tao Te Ching begins, The Way that can be spoken is not the eternal Way. Then what IS the eternal way? This is the question that we bring to practice each day, each moment, actually. A way that neither begins nor ends and cannot be taught and cannot be spoken. This can sound so arcane and mysterious and it is, before we awaken to the simple truth of this moment, every moment.
Aitken Roshi used to say that awakening to the timeless, to the enormity in any immediate moment of experience, releasing us from suffering, is something that happens by accident. But practice makes us accident-prone! This truth of being alive is constantly before us, within us. From an ego-centered position, where we feel pinned by our own thoughts and miseries, dissatisfactions, beliefs, self-defeating habits, we cannot know the meaning of all these Buddhist words. How can a Way that cannot be taught, be learned?
We come upon the Dharma truths by ourselves in the midst of any ordinary moment. While struggling against our own avoidance, confusion and doubt, somewhere in all that it may occur to us that maybe the way to be released from this misery is found exactly in what I am trying to avoid. Right here in the midst of it. Here’s the paradox. Here’s the place to stop and be free.
