Beware your assumptions.

Having previously stated I would avoid passing on the words of others (however wise) but instead let my soul speak, I will now take issue with myself. 

And my justification for breaking that pledge is because, after the fact of my own process of brokenness, I discovered some vital wisdom that is useful for anyone wishing to move through their own transitions to the light. This justification might be understood by any parent who cares for their children, advising them, by saying, “Look, you can make that choice, but if you do odds are you’ll encounter some serious adversity. How do I know? Because I too made that choice and it ended very badly for me.”

Of course, more often than not they (and we) need to make our own choices and learn our own lessons. Nevertheless, when we care for someone, we believe we have an obligation to share what we’ve learned. Whether or not anyone listens is a separate issue.

When I began my journey toward liberation I had no idea I was in bondage. On the contrary, I thought “success” was framed in the ordinary way of monetary prosperity and a satisfying career. There was not a single doubt in my mind about how success was understood. Consequently for many years, preceding hitting the wall, I planned for the day when I would become an adult, leave home and have a career on Madison Avenue as a big shot in the advertising business. I had many thoughts about how to prepare for that goal and one by one knocked them down until one day I entered that arena and found out by experience where that path led, and it wasn’t where I had imagined.

And where did it ultimately lead? To utter despair and a sense of futility. I reached the point where it was painfully clear of what didn’t work but I was completely lacking answers of what would. By that time, I had invested 40 years on a path to nowhere. I had earned a lot of money along the way, occupied positions of responsibility and power only to feel empty. And then I did, what most considered, inadvisable and desperate. I resigned, completely, from my career and nearly committed suicide. I was very emotionally sick and lost. 

I chose to leave Madison Avenue and go and live in a Zen monastery in upstate New York, where I began to find the better way and learned my after-the-fact wisdom, some of which I now will share (contrary to my pledge).

One of the first sages I discovered was Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese sage who said: “Not-knowing is true knowledge. Presuming to know is a disease. First, realize that you are sick; then you can move toward health.” It seemed that knowledge had been designed for me in particular, but of course, it applies to everyone. The very first step of moving toward health is honesty—admitting to yourself that you are sick. Denial doesn’t work. When everything surrounding you says, “you’re on the wrong path” sooner (hopefully) than later you need to listen, even if you don’t know what is the right path.

I didn’t know what “was”, I just knew what “wasn’t” but without knowing, that state of confusion was critical to ultimately finding answers. So now we come to another wise observation spoken by an 8th century CE Indian Buddhist philosopher by the name of Śhāntideva, who said that in order to be able to deny something, we first have to know what it is we’re denying. When thoroughly considered the logic of that statement is peerless. He went on to say, “Without contacting the entity that is imputed you will not apprehend the absence of the entity.” In other words, to know what “is” you also have to know what “isn’t”.

And to cap this post, I’ll end with a notion from Descartes and a poet. Descartes said in order to determine whether there is anything we can know with certainty, we first have to doubt everything we know. The flow of life is anything but certain. It is a fast-moving torrent that changes all previous assumptions, and my soul speaking to your soul says (what the poet Robert Burns said): be aware that no matter how carefully we plan a project, something may still go wrong—“The best laid schemes o' mice an' men/Gang aft a-gley.” So recognize, before anything else, life itself is change, be prepared to admit what you don’t know, let go of your ego convictions and adapt.