Where was Tao while I was gone?
Wasn’t I following it where I went?
Do you think that there are two?
After traveling awhile, we come home to a familiar place, only we often look at it in a new light. Were things different while we weren’t here? We experienced so many new and different things while we were gone — wasn’t that Tao too? How can there be so many differences?
You might argue that a mountain is a mountain, but our attitudes toward it are changeable. If we mistake our subjective viewpoints as something that is solid, permanent, and never relative to circumstances, then we will have no end to our problems. However, if we always remember that everything is comparative, then we can move through life in a much more dynamic way.
There are not two ways. There is only one. It is so vast that we can experience widely diverging aspects of it and imagine that we are in different realities. This is a misconception. We cannot outrun Tao, cannot be outside of it. It is only our viewpoints that change to the degree that we think we are in differing dimensions. In the river of Tao, we are like minnows that can never plumb the length and breadth of the water.
I feel rather like I am coming home, but to a new place. Reformatting the blog has been so easy this time around, it’s really nice. I like WordPress a lot and think this is going to be much better. Comments should work now and I think I will get more posting done, since it will not be such a pain to delete comment and trackback spamming.
So yes, I’ve been out of the Tao a bit more lately. I’ve been doing more political stuff, and working on getting the house fixed again – getting walls and carpeting torn out that were damaged to a small bit of flooing we had from all of the rain this year. The kids are busy clearing out their junk in anticipation of getting ready to carpet the bedrooms and paint what needs painted, once the walls are fixed.
Once the carpet is done, we just have to fix/replace doors, and then we’re done with the house except for repairs, so that will be good. I love my little house, but I really want to get it in shape and then be ready to move on, whenever that may happen. I need a big yard full of golden retrievers, and maybe a horse, and room for a nice garden, with some decent soil this time instead of a foot of soil on top of solid granite. it’s been a real learning experience getting things to grow here, but it is very challenging. I’ve grown to love native plants, which I blog about sometimes on Native Growers.
So I guess in a way I’m looking for a real homecoming, a place I can find and recognize as “home”, instead of a place that seems like a bit of a halfway point for me. I’m halfway through my life, so perhaps this is where I belong right now, but at times, it just doesn’t feel right for me.
When I travel, I can get very into the spirit of the place I am at, but they are not always places that inspire me to think of Tao. I don’t tend to study Tao when I travel, except perhaps indirectly by studying the place I am visisting.
I think it’s important to realize that everyone is part of the same reality. No matter what we may think as individuals, or even as a group of people, others are still within the same reality even though they may think about things in a different way. We no more “create reality” than we have created the universe, no matter what we may think. We can only influence events, but whatever we may do, there are always consequences to our actions, and not always just the intended results. It would be well for those in positions of power to remember this, instead of thinking the only reality is the one they imagine.
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