Lake shadows color of cold,
Willow branches weep ice.
Swan rises dazzling in the sunlight.
After long self-cultivation, one’s accumulated energy reaches a threshold and then bursts out full, breathing, and vibrant. Without the careful building of momentum, this moment of release would never have been possible. With long years of preparation and experience, the freeing of the soul will not be mere dissipation but will be so strongly focused that it lifts one into a higher state of awareness. When one’s spiritual energy emerges, it feels like a swan rising from the water.
Once you have reached this level of stored energy, you will be a different person. On one hand, you may take genuine comfort in the point of attainment that you have made. On the other had, you now see all the other possibilities that remain for you to explore.
With the emergence of great possibilities comes the need for responsibility. If you diverge from your life’s path in order to explore new vistas, remember how far you are flying, and remember to return at the proper times. Only you can decide how to arrange your life. Once you are a strong flier, you must still use wisdom to direct your flight.
(2005 comments)
I have rather mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand, it is great to think that at some point, there will be a breakthrough and from that point on everything will be a wonderful flight of the soul. The problem comes when we sit around waiting for some breakthrough instead of simply enjoying our lives for what they are. The real breakthrough, it seems, is to realize that you can find happiness and fulfillment in the everyday, the ordinary, and that you don’t have to wait for some altered state or breakthrough of the soul or some fantastic ecstatic experience to happen.
Life is full of extraordinary possibilities. So what. Life is full of ordinary life, too. Enjoy ordinary life to its fullest, and it will all seem extraordinary. That is the real breakthrough.
(2010 comments)
I think I had a pretty good Tao response to this when I first read it. I think since then, I’ve had my breakthrough, I have come to the point where I’m now ready to fly off and explore new vistas, as I am this week in heading to Hawaii. I think the reassurance for me in re-reading this now is to know that I will be returning at the proper time, coming back to the day to day responsibilities here that right now I am so eager to take a break from.
At this point in my life I am learning how to counsel others, and helping to try to expand the Tao influence (whatever that is) into the people I come across. Tao is work without effort, so this should be effortless for me. I feel the pieces coming into my life, gathering closer, and the tools are beginning to fall into my hands. I know how to fly. What I do not yet know is, the vistas where I will land, and how to know the proper time to return. But I think those things will come to me. Return is the way of the Tao.
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