nature

I was presented with a compelling question the other day. If all sentient beings are so deeply conditioned that everything we say to ourselves and one another only re-enforces our delusions, who can we rely on to show us the way?

The answer presented seemed initially unhelpful. No sentient beings could be relied on. Since everything we say is directly referencing our conditioning, all of it separates us from reality as it is while pulling us deeper into the mud of interpretations, belief systems and personal agendas.

The only thing that can be relied on for anything close to objectivity is, therefore, non-sentient beings. In other words, nature. Life itself. That which unfolds underneath the names, labels and functions we've concocted.

If I go looking for reality through conversation with someone that I've decided is more capable than myself, all I'm doing is inviting new conceptual frameworks into my head. The fact is I'm completely qualified to encounter reality just by having senses and a mind of my own. There's no need to offload authority to others based on how confident they seem in their ideas. Their confidence only reveals how deluded they are. It acts like a tempting lure drawing us into the jaws of sharks.

Reality is encountered, not described. It's what's occuring in spite of the words we use to explain it. It includes the words but is not found in their contents. It is them and it is all around them. It's this right here, right before our eyes and on the tips of our tongues and ringing against our eardrums. It's that which can be seen and heard and felt and tasted and smelled, not that which we've ascribed in our compulsion to divy up and label. It's all that's unfolding entirely beyond our wills, yet which we remain inextricably part of. It's nature, in every sense of the word. And all that's needed to know it is our own senses and common sense.

After all, I'm pretty sure I came away with more useful insights into human dynamics from watching ducks swimming in a pond for an hour than I did from decades of reading. And it was so obvious once I saw it, so simple and universally applicable.

So that's what I can rely on to show the way. To show truth and reality beyond concepts. Not more words from another conditioned mind, but nature itself.