The Way I Have Been Walking
Reflections on Camus, Lao Tzu, the human condition, and the art of witnessing life.
Salam and Gasho.
Yesterday, I came across a video comparing Albert Camus and Lao Tzu, two great minds of the past whose writings had influenced my thinking during my college years. The comparison was particularly interesting to me, for I had always viewed these two thinkers as representing different approaches to the Way of Living.
Camus, the man rolling the boulder up the mountain, confronting the absurdity of existence through determination and effort.
Lao Tzu, the river flowing along its course, finding its way through the landscape without resistance, embodying the wisdom of effortless action.
One confronts life through struggle, while the other teaches us to flow with it.
Both, however, offer a way of easing the burden we carry within ourselves.
I had also come across a comparison between J. Krishnamurti and Alan Watts, whose approaches to understanding the nature of existence differed, yet whose teachings have influenced generations of seekers.
Krishnamurti challenged us to observe ourselves and our conditioning without relying upon the authority of others.
Watts, with his remarkable ability to bridge Eastern and Western thought, invited us to reconsider our relationship with the universe and the illusion of being separate from it.
What struck me was how these great minds, coming from different cultures and environments, had left behind a legacy that continues to influence the way modern humanity understands and approaches life.
Yet, as I reflected upon these comparisons, I realized something about my own journey.
I am no longer asking how to walk the Way.
I have been walking it, and have been doing so for most of my life.
Perhaps I have found the right answers, or even the perfect ones, but the experience of walking through life, confronting its tragedies and achievements, has become embedded in me, whether I had realized it or not.
I have always thought of myself as a sponge, absorbing the tragedies and plays of human life.
Perhaps this explains why I have become a storyteller, and why I sometimes think too much.
Looking Beyond the Container
A long time ago, while living at Green Gulch Zen Community, I witnessed the scandal involving Richard Baker, better known as Baker Roshi, and the consequences it brought upon the community.
That experience taught me an important lesson.
I learned to look beyond the container and seek the truth in the content.
Almost all these great men had their own flaws of character, which they lived with, as we all do.
Yet the wisdom they imparted could transcend their humanity.
We need not regard a person as perfect in order to recognize the value of what they have taught us.
Nor must we discard the wisdom simply because the person who imparted it was imperfect.
The truth of a teaching must ultimately be examined and experienced for ourselves.
Perhaps that is what it means to be a seeker rather than a follower.
The Fishermen at the Jetty
Later that morning, I took a walk to the Malay fishermen's jetty.
I was told that in two or three weeks, the place would be gone, wiped out by development.
I looked at the place and thought about the fishermen I had known all these years, those who would be displaced, rendered homeless, and perhaps pushed into deeper destitution.
I felt like Camus, confronting a tragedy that might be beyond my ability to prevent.
At the same time, I concurred with Lao Tzu, recognizing that life does not always yield to our wishes and that there are limits to what we can control.
But then I realized something.
I was already doing something about it, perhaps inadvertently, by sharing it in my blog as part of my journey.
I may not be able to prevent the development or change the fate of those fishermen.
But I can bear witness.
I can record their lives and the places they have inhabited.
I can share their stories with those who might otherwise never know what has been lost.
And perhaps, in doing so, I can preserve something of their humanity and their struggles for those who come after us.
The Way I Have Been Walking
Looking back, I realize that the teachings of Camus, Lao Tzu, Krishnamurti, and Alan Watts were not merely intellectual influences from my college days.
Their ideas were seeds that fell into the soil of my experience.
They have been growing alongside the life I have lived.
I have encountered their teachings in the books I read, but I have also encountered them in the people I have known, the places I have visited, the tragedies I have witnessed, and the experiences that have shaped my understanding of life.
Perhaps this is the difference between reading about the Way and walking it.
The book offers the words.
Life supplies the experience.
And the storyteller brings them together.
I write because I have seen.
I share because these experiences have become part of me.
And I continue walking, not because I have found all the answers, but because the journey itself has become my understanding.
Perhaps that is all there is to it.
The Way is not something I have to find anymore.
It is the life I have been living all along.
Via con Dios.
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