supposedly shows us the right road for all contingencies. The essential is to follow Nature and not interfere by intruding our ego and its personal aims. I do believe that we often intrude, disturbing Nature, imposing our own ego, our own preconceptions, rather than being open to what the situation calls for. We can learn much from Taoism’s sermon against human meddling.
The modern vision, however, is of a world with bona fide options, with choices that are often unavoidable. We cannot accept the presupposition that Nature, or tradition, or “Destiny” can decisively settle all questions for us. As we see it, choices are ineliminable from our world. So are the selves who must make those choices. The assumption of a world that presents us with complete answers for all occasions is not credible to modern Westerners.
In any case I know that total selflessness is not a practical option for me. That doesn’t take away from the importance of achieving whatever degree of selflessness I can—and to that extent removing the terror aroused by that meaningless end of the self we call death.
I realize that what I need is an image of life and death that does not rely on supernaturalist evasions of the reality of death. I need an image that does not require the unacceptable assumptions about a fixed path for each of us that are built into the Eastern doctrines of pure selflessness. I need an image that does not misrepresent the true meaning of death by analogizing it, for example, to separation or to sleep. The image I seek would have to recognize the variety, the uncertainties, the vicissitudes of life. It would have to be an image for modern times—an honest one.
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