MEDITATIONS: DOKKODO; THE WAY OF ALONENESS XXI.
Principle Twenty-One
Never stray from The Way. (Miyamoto, Musashi)
What is the Way from which we ought never stray?
At the deepest level, one cannot answer this question; however, a shallow comprehension, like a still pond or puddle, can reflect an image or shape by which one can understand something about the nature of the Way.
The Way (a.k.a. Path, Road, Great Course, God, objective universe, etc.) is that-which-is regardless of anyone’s perception or experience of it. Immanuel Kant called this the noumenal. Modern secular vernacular dubs it the objective, while older post-enlightenment thinkers might call it Truth, fate, or nature. More ancient and religious traditions call this God, and those older still call it the waters from which rises the primordial dragon of chaos, Leviathan.
Regardless of the chosen name, what is being described is the ineffable—that which lies beyond the ability for human beings to understand. People, no matter when or where from, must perceive by means of dichotomies. Human beings’ sense faculties discern differing and opposing sights, smells, sounds, tastes, and touches. The emotions are likewise divided by the experiences they impart onto internal and external perception: happiness feels different than anger, fear, or sadness; and though each of these somewhat overlaps with the others, they also each feel unique enough to distinguish even in a flurry of emotion. And there are the intellectual, cognitive, conscious, or rational faculties as well—reason, planning, intention, restraint.
None of these sensory, emotional, or cognitive faculties perceive the world or even the self as they are.
The biological systems (even spiritual, if the third category is to be attributed to a soul) serve only to ensure human beings can successfully act in the world, and that success means multi-generational perpetuation of genetics and culture (memetics). Humans are not evolved (or designed for that matter) to detect things as they are, only to navigate well enough to pass on the torch. A good analogy is life span: all creatures are mortal; eventually, they grow old, sick, and die. This is because static beings—creatures with a finite nature, capable of a very limited amount of transformation—which exist too long will inevitably fail to adapt to ever changing environments. Offspring are a solution to this as well as other challenges. By creating a new generation and later dying off, the prior generation creates an opportunity for transformation between generations while contributing and then passing away as not to compete with the potentially more adaptive young.
Like lifespan, which is not concerned with accuracy or perfection but adaptation and successful self-propagation, perception as a set of faculties is concerned with the same. It does not matter if the map misses most of the details of the landscape if it get the reader to his destination. Subjective human experience is that map; whereas, the Way is the actual landscape.
With this understanding, it should be obvious why one ought never stray from the Way. To act out of accord with the Way is to act out of accord with reality, and in a religious sense, out of accord with morality (for if the Way is God, then to stray from it is akin to straying from the will of God). To be “out of accord” is to be in discord, the opposite of harmony. To be discordant with the Way, God, or reality is by definition a losing battle. It is a path which ultimately promises obstruction, frustration, confusion, bitterness, and resentment. Harmony, on the other hand, offers peace, cooperation, compensation, and compliments. For example, when a husband and wife have a harmonious relationship, they make peace instead of drawing out disagreements into fights; they work with one another voluntarily’ they make up for each other’s deficiencies and facilitate one another’s virtues.
Like the husband and wife, mankind and the Way have a relationship. This relationship can be strifeful, or it can be harmonious. If the latter is chosen, the question remains, “How does one stay on the Way without straying?” Again, it is not different than the functional relationship between man and woman. It must be agreed upon who is dominant and who is subordinate and to what degree, how are the roles and responsibilities to be divided, and how each is to conduct him or herself in private and in public.
Now, the difference between man and woman is quite small compared to the difference between man and the Way. One is finite, the other infinite. One is limited to a dichotomous world of perceptions and experiences, the other is not confined by any such rules of non-contradiction. Therefore, mankind ought to submit to and serve the Way to a much greater extent than a wife ought to her husband. Likewise, proper conduct and morality are determined not by the individual will or even the collective, but by the Way itself. Cultures, like individuals, sustain themselves based on their virtues—that is, their accordance with the Way, that-is-which is.
That is why one ought never stray from the Way. Because the Path is that landscape along which each man is fated to some destination. That destination is death and ultimate termination, which means that ones should only really concern himself with the journey of his life, not the journey’s completion. But man’s maps are always faulty, as is the nature of maps; and the Way is not a broad or direct route. It winds and changes like a river, rebirthing itself like a skin-shedding snake. A man, likewise, must shed his skin many times. He must stray and feel the pain of straying, then transform himself by sacrificing his former map, even if that map contained the only record of what he thought was his location and identity. Such a sacrifice is the only way to make room for a new map with an updated model of the landscape, and with said new map, one can return to the Path. He can again make meaningful progress, because he has reshaped himself to better fit his nature into the space the Way provides for him—his place in the world, his purpose and calling.
There is nothing more worth living for than your reason for living, and that reason rest in the relationship between yourself and the Way. Never stray, even if you happen to; because as long as your aim is toward that which is most noble, you will always find your way back when lost, even in deepest darkness.
“Never stray from the Way.”
Miyamoto, Musashi. Dokkodo, translator unknown, 1645.
