Ladders and Paths
10:05 AM
Manila Dreams #7
Dream last night: climbing a ladder up the side of a mountain. Up very high. Another mountain is close, and there is a goat chewing leaves. I jump from the ladder to the path. The goat trots away down a narrow path, and when I turn the corner, the goat is gone. I am the goat.
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There are ladders, and there are paths. "Ladders to success" and "paths to awareness" might be one way of looking at it. I had to climb the ladder until I was close enough to a path to jump over. Here's a difference: ladders are built by people. Paths are initially grooved by animals: goats, cattle, etc. Then broadened by people.
That ties in with my sense of myself as a "Zen Christian"--the "red letter" text that I can verify or support by observing natural forces and the behavior of animals, I accept. The rest is someone's opinion on the subject, and I will NOT place my soul in the hands of another human being.
There are different ways of looking at this, but starting with physics and moving to chemistry and then biology and then from there to primate behavior is, roughly, a good start.
Starting with survival, then moving to love, and there to contribution is a good path.
The Three Gates are a good ladder, and in climbing them you can approach a path, a "gateless gate" that can't quite be described. "True", "Kind" and "Useful" are a great triumverate, but it is the space they define, like three points on a triangle, that really matter. "Affirming-Denying-Reconciling" can be considered here, and will produce useful results and perspectives.
Then of course there is Yin and Yang. And I tend to look at those knots primarily in terms of race and gender, as those are probably the thorniest knot in America, with the greatest politicalization and therefore distraction.
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I have a clip of one of our Manila instructors, Mel Tortal, performing a motion that is a series of concentric spirals. He demonstrates it with knife and empty hands. The techniques can be extracted, but the truth is that they flow naturally from the intersection of lines and circles--or rather circle and extreme curves from larger, invisible circles. Living things always move in curves, no matter how straight their movement seems. These spirals and circles, whether in Kali or Kenpo or Spanish Circle fencing, are studies of the natural world, with infinite motions extractable therefrom. The circles are LADDERS that are also PATHS. They were "created" but also "observed."
All of these observations run into the limitations of language and experience. But you can only glimpse that Dynamic Sphere of consciousness and movement without glimpsing things that cannot be seen or spoken of.
I've got another one for you: the Enneagram. A "paper computer" where you list the nine or ten separate aspects of a process around the edge, but then look at the internal lines, the CONNECTIONS between these aspects of the process. I used this last week with the Star Wars novel, as I was tired and jet-lagged, and using such tools sort of "fakes" being smarter than you really are, or sharper than you really feel. I may go into how this worked at a future time.
But Yeah. Ladders that lead to paths. Reach the path, and you can throw away the ladder. You AUTOMATICALLY do the things that preserve life and fulfill honorable obligation. But are walking your path with heart. The "Householder Yogi" seeks to follow both the dictates of spirit (say, Patangali's 8-limbs) and commerse until his sons and daughters can take over the family business, at which point he (or she, I assume) can go off into the woods if necessary to complete their journey.
To "be IN the world, but not OF the world" is a way this is described.
A lot of unpacking of a simple dream. Circles. Spheres. Dynamic spheres. Points and spirals. And there are so many ways into that matrix, from physical motion to the Tao to the enneagram and beyond. All different versions of the same universal structures. Their representations are "ladders". The observed underlying phenomena are the thousand paths up the single mountain.
Wow. My brain is really humming right now. I sure hope it makes sense to some of you. But whether or not it does, here I am, and here I walk.
No turning back. Hope to see some of you on the mountain, but if not, I wish you peace in your journey…
Namaste
Steve
