the path of no path

Put your shoes off your feet, for the place on which you stand is holy ground. -- Exodus 3: 5

At some point on our spiritual path, we must go barefoot.

Whatever art one practices, one starts out with form. One con-forms to the methods of others. At some point, however, the form becomes a con. One is caught within the form and advances no further.

In the martial arts, going beyond the form one has practiced all these years is sometimes called becoming a white belt again. As T.S. Eliot put it: "We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." One now opens with true beginner's mind.

Whatever philosophy, whatever theology, whatever guides for living, whatever rules of order one has been following must be thrown aside. These shoes must be taken from our feet. The training wheels are removed.

We no longer follow a path. We are the path.

Why do many of us not do this? Why do we keep our shoes, our training wheels on?

Meister Eckhart explains: "No one is so foolish as not to desire wisdom. Why then do we not become wise? Much is necessary for this. The most important thing is that one go beyond and transcend all things and the cause of all things, and one begins to find this irksome."

The Meister makes me laugh. We find it irksome. It is our irkiness that keeps us bound to form.

We find it much easier to keep bouncing on our same old pogo stick. And everyone says, isn't s/he a good __________? (secular humanist, christian, jew, buddhist, taoist, new ager, atheist, agnostic, muslim, hindu . . .)

As we keep following our path, we will eventually be required to take off our shoes. For the place on which we stand is holy ground.

The paradox of this is that we first have to wear shoes to take them off. One conforms to form then becomes formless. The natural course of events is that the shoes will drop off by themselves, unless you bind them to your feet with your favorite form of duct tape.