South of Paradise: Chapter 2
2 - The Way
The way that can be followed cannot be the ultimate, pathless Way. It is the same with the name of things: if things are explicable, the names we give them cannot be the original Name.
— Verse 1, Dao De Jing
I won’t speak much more about our formative years, because I don’t remember them all that well. Most of what we learned were many basic survival skills and fighting techniques, things that are remembered in our muscles more than our minds, but what one of the lessons of the nature of our world really stuck with me. In my darkest moments that lesson would surface from the depths of my mind and keep me centered. I have mentioned what he told us about life, but he also gave us bits and pieces of a different concept.
He talked of the Way.
We gathered around him in the yard after sparring one day, when my Wake and I were around the age of ten. We stretched while he spoke.
“Here is a concept beyond anything I will teach you.” He said. We reached for our ankles and toes, towards the sky and the earth. The master reached down and pulled up a handful of dirt.
“What is this?” He asked us. We all gave him blank looks. After a moment, Samson responded in a matter of fact voice:
“Dirt. Just dirt.”
“Is it? What’s in my other hand now?” Our master said as he took another scoop of dirt from the ground. But before scooping down, he walked a few paces and got moist earth between his hands; a live worm squirmed out over his knuckles.
“Dirt again.” Said Sid, who sat on the ground and reached for his toes.
“Right you are, partly,” the master responded, “but what makes them different?”
To this question came a series of responses, all given one after another. We never raised our hands, but always knew how to respond without interrupting one another. It was a mental bond that we had developed from a combination of discipline and training together.
“When you picked them up. The one in your left hand you got first, the right hand came next.”
“Place. They were both in different places to start and now they are in different hands.”
“The stuff in them. They may look the same but are probably made from different things.”
“I think one of them had a worm in it?”
And there were a few more answers that I can’t remember, but we made a decent attempt at differentiating the two clumps of dirt, sitting in our master’s fingers.
“Okay.” The master said. He took the dirt in his right hand and brought his left hand into it, smashing the two handfuls together into a single clump. “Now how are they different?”
We struggled with this for a second, but then proceeded to list the same reasons, saying that just because you changed where something is doesn’t mean you changed what it was.
“But you are looking at it the wrong way.” The master retorted. “These two clumps were destined to meet. One was dirt, dead and inert, but the other was soil, alive and lifegiving. Maybe a wind came and brought these clumps here, or a dried up river that once ran through here moved them, but at one point very far in the past, these two pieces of dirt were united, and then separated until this moment right now.
“And right now, the dirt and soil has been rejoined… Two interpenetrating pieces… And even after this.” He said as he released the dirt/soil into the wind. “The dirt will reunite once again, but in a different time and place. Here is what I am trying to get at: things are eternal, even though they constantly change.”
Now we were all simply confused.
“Isn’t that a contradi…?” asked Bailey, after a brief pause, trailing off at being unable to recall the word.
The master smiled, “A contradiction, yes. Some call it a paradox. We call it The Way.”
“Which way?” asked Kyle. He seemed very confused as he looked around, though no more confused than any of us.
The master’s smile broadened. “Both this way, and that way,” he said gesturing with his dirty hands, straight ahead and behind him. “It is every which way and no way, because it is also a paradox. Though you may seek this Way, you will never find it, only by not seeking, but sensing it, feeling it, will you walk the path. It is our true master, the leader of everything under and beyond the sun and stars. And at the same time, it is the master of nothing, and simply watches and waits.
“To understand that two things can be one, and one thing can be two, or that many things can be one, and one thing can be many, regardless of time and space, is part of this Way. This dirt might be the remains of an ancestor, or many ancestors blown together; it may be the remains of many creatures of the earth. It might also be simply crushed rock. But it is more than just dirt. This dirt is everything, and nothing; it represents the cycle that you and I and every living creature must follow.
“This cycle is also known as the Way. Before you go to bed tonight, try to think of all the things that you need in life and where they come from. And then trace that back farther and farther. As your mind moves beyond yourself, you will see that without this cycle and without the unity between you and the earth, life would not be. It is not change that we have to fear, because life is change: it is a lack of balance. Unbalance causes change to become more rapid and more chaotic, more destructive and psychotic. Unbalance is what we seek to correct.”
“Balance between the two ways, or the ten thousand ways, is what the Way is. Balance between right and left. Balance between up and down, between North and South, life and death. Sunlight and moonlight. The unity of all opposites, the bridge between Heaven and Earth. That is the Way.”
We returned to the dining hall and ate in silence, trying to digest his words along with our meals. As a ten year old, I didn’t make much of what he had said, but this knowledge planted the seeds of belief that would blossom in years to come.
A few months later, he brought us into the yard again, this time after meditation. We circled around our master as he wrote a word on the ground. Our literacy in the common tongue was basic, since we only needed to be able to read written instructions of sorts, and the primary method of instruction was oral. We all recognized the word for “water,” though, as he drew it in the dirt with a staff, which often served as an implement of discipline.
“Read this for me, Bailey.” he said, as he stepped away from the mark. Bailey was the most adept of our Wake, and served as a tutor to many of us during our times with a brush and scroll.
“Water,” she said, “the dots represent drops of water, the lines show its flow.”
“Very good.” Said the master. “Flow is one of the key concepts I have tried to convey. In all of the different fighting styles, flow is of utmost importance. But flow is important in all art forms, especially in writing.” He proceeded to write another character, which almost none of us recognized, beyond Bailey of course.
As soon as the teacher picked up his staff to signify he was done writing, Bailey spoke “Way, as in a path. One can see a foot represented on the left.”
“Very good, once again, Bailey.” Said the master. “But I believe this word represents more than a terrestrial way. It is the way of the universe. Just as the concept of water can be extended to represent flow, or life, the concept of a single path can represent the infinite number of paths that comprise reality.” The words were over our heads once again, his previous teachings on the topic having brought more confusion than clarity. He met our puzzled glances with a smile.
The master drew a set of paths radiating out from the symbol, lines upon lines upon lines, radiating out and trailing off as he finished each stroke. Some crossed, some twisted, others diverged or stayed parallel. He stuck his stick in the ground after he finished and turned to Sid asking, “Which path is the correct one?”
Sid surveyed the array of lines, all seemingly arbitrary, and posited an answer: “They’re all correct. Or at least they all lead in the same direction.”
“Interesting thought,” said our master. “But what if I told you that this one was the correct path?” And the master placed his staff on a seemingly random line. “And this path was the incorrect one.” Once again the master moved his staff to a line that had no apparent significance. “An incorrect path is still a path, and a correct path is also a path. These paths are correct or incorrect only because I say they are, but most importantly, they join together in one concept. The Way. You may not be able to tell by looking at the lines now, but the direction I drew them in was of utmost importance.”
He demonstrated that the lines he drew coming out had a flourish on the outer edge, while the ones he had drawn inward pointed towards the word he had written. “The paths leading away from the Way are incorrect, the paths leading towards the Way are correct. It is not that these paths are hardly ever taken, in fact, most people do not follow the Way, or if they do, they only follow the path partway in before moving out again. The unity of all these paths is the Way, but those that emanate from it weaken as they go, diminishing their virility and perseverance on the way out, while those that move towards the Way flow towards immortality and gain true control over their destiny.”
Our master paused for a moment, to let us absorb what he had just said. Some of us, like Bailey and Wanda, seemed to capture what he said, while the rest of us, trying to make sense of our master’s words, turned them over in our minds like a piece of dough, but we failed to see the meaning of his words at that moment.
The master held his breath for a brief moment. As he exhaled, he surveyed us with a pair of keen, bright eyes, and spoke his last words for the day.
“Do not confuse this” he gestured at the word and all of the lines, “for the true Way. This is simply a signpost; if you do not fully understand the Way, that is good, because it is beyond comprehension.” Those of us who were confused now felt relief, while those of us who had understood felt quite perplexed.
“Only by living will you move farther along the path to understanding.”
He dismissed us with a nod, and set about erasing the lines with the heel of his sandal.
