August 3, 2005

Spreading Your Wings

My spiritual friend said the following is what the ocean says to the river when the river falls into the ocean. It is from a story by Chuang Tzu where the Spirit of the Ocean is speaking to the Spirit of the River:

"You cannot speak of the ocean to a well frog, the creature of a narrower sphere. You cannot speak of ice to a summer insect, the creature of a season. You cannot speak of Tao to a pedagogue, his scope is too limited. But now that you have emerged from your narrow sphere and seen the great ocean, you know your own insignificance and I can speak to you of great principles."

Post by Akilesh

2 comments:

Paul said...

Makes sense to me. But it is so hard to promote dialogue between people who approach religion through belief and those who approach it through experience. Some believers definitely do a "blend," but for others, religion is something almost completely externalized.

The way I'd put it is they're aware of their emotional lives, but have less awareness of their spiritual lives - the depths of experience that underlie the level of emotional life. And of course millions and millions have had zero instruction in the contemplative traditions of their own religions.

Happily love is an exception, which seems to bridge the two worlds, although I find there is a great deal of misconception around what love is.

Mark Walter said...

Oh, wow. I really like that.

As a student of the Way, I am very devoted to principles. Very expressive story. I am going to Sideblog a link to this post.

PAUL: I sure agree with what you are saying.