Chapter 2.8

Penumbra and Shadow

Penumbra,* putting a question to Shadow, says:
One moment you’re active, the next you’re still.
One moment you’re sitting, the next you’re standing.
Why this lack of self-control?

Shadow says:
Is it that I have things I wait on, according to which I act so?
Is it that the things I wait on have things they wait on, according to which they act so?

Is it that I’m waiting on a snake’s scales, a cicada’s wings?

How would I know what makes me now act so, now not so?

*  *  *  *  *

Penumbra is like my brain, my thinking self. My brain sees itself as an independent, self-determining sort of thing. When my body doesn’t comply with its agendas, it gets frustrated. Sometimes exasperated.  ‘Body, we’re meant to be reading. Why are you so fidgety? Body, we’re meant to be getting up. Why are you so sleepy?’ From Brain’s point of view, Body lacks discipline and self-control.

My body is like Shadow. Like Shadow, my body doesn’t know why it does this and that, and it couldn’t care less! In fact, it feels Brain’s questions are tedious. ‘Really? This old routine? I thought we’d been over this. Fine, I’ll explain it again. Look, we’re all just small parts in an infinite causal network. Stuff happens in the world—I don’t know what—and now I feel an urge to stand. I feel an urge to stand, and then you usually say, as if it were your very own idea, Let’s stand. It’s a bit tiresome, you know, that you keep forgetting this. Sometimes you get fixated on an idea, a plan of action, and then you’re edgy with me and with everything else in the world that doesn’t immediately fall into line with your little plan.’

~

This story is a segue from Chuang Tzu’s passive method to his active method.

In the previous sections we’ve been learning the passive method. We’ve been de-fusing from our brain’s assertions and agendas, which has freed us to see the path, the harmonious isness of things.

In the following two chapters we’ll learn the active method. Having de-fused from our brain’s assertions and agendas, we’ll learn how to get in touch with our energetic sense of engagement with things. We’ll see that this energy waits on things. It responds to things in an attentive, attuned, harmonious way. Like Shadow. Without deliberate control. Trusting of spontaneously arising inclinations and urges. Exquisitely responsive to the environment. In perfect harmony with the environment. 

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