The Way?
September 3rd, 2022
The more I live, the more I think that some Taoist “ideals” and buddhist “ideals” are simply false.
Can you truly have nothing you want? Can you truly have no desire? Can you truly accept all things as they come?
Perhaps you can. Yet, even that seems like detachment or self-deception of some sort. To be human is to have drives and desires.
You will never be free of fear or sadness. You will never not wholly stop avoiding things. You will never truly have no preference. To have no preference is a preference of sorts.
We cannot help but act according to specific principles. We cannot help but seek safety and familiarity.
Even if we say we seek change and do not like things to stay the same, the change becomes our constant and what we then expect. To live a life of no change could then become a hardship.
We cannot escape what we are. I feel that true freedom is understanding that. You can deceive and trick yourself in any way you wish, yet you cannot avoid reality. You cannot escape the absurdity.
There is no such thing as enlightenment. It is an oxymoron.
I suppose that is the lesson of the Tao. The Yin-Yang is the lesson. We all are never above. We all just are. There is nothing to escape. There is nothing to get. Yet at the same time there is everything.
We are all living this absurd reality together. Trying to navigate it the best we can. There is no sense denying this truth or thinking yourself above it. Simply see it. Life will happen.
© 2022 Austin Lochan Dodd