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Here be Dragons…
The sign at the end of the world says:
Or in Latin: “HC SVNT DRACONES”
This was the saying to denote dangerous or unexplored territories, in unknown blank areas of maps.
It’s very fitting that as a practice no religion or philosophy embraces dragons more in my mind than Taoism itself.
The Tao represents the unknown, those blanks areas of the map, those places we go to explore to discover more about our very nature…
Words, Reality and Spiritual Exploration
It isn’t easy to watch the literal-minded try to put into words a concept that by definition, isn’t literal. You see the Tao is always the blank area of the map by definition. Maps will always have empty regions since maps are merely models, not the real thing.
Likewise, words are only models. To be a scientific thinker is to train the mind to think regarding a model placed on top of another model of words.
The loophole is merely a fiction of incomplete models.
To live is to be and gets one out of the model and into life…
Models are powerful for the simplification they offer, and that simplification is the very same drawback that distracts the literal-minded person from Tao.
A person is constantly embracing the impossible, even when denying this truth. Each day a person strives to determine their potential and what is beyond their day.
It’s fun to try at times only because you learn in the attempt, but it isn’t about the definition, it’s what you learn in the dance of trying that matters.
Being literal is the most significant flaw typically found in westerners trying to be Taoists. Westerners try to define themselves to the practice, rather than knowing and accepting it’s about how we hold ourselves in the journey that defines us instead.
I am a dragon, ancient, young electric and mysterious: Because I embrace the unknown of my life. My breath roars with lightning as I strike out each moment to explore Tao, not to define it, but to live it.
As a footnote historically the saying was HIC SVNT LEONES (literally, Here are lions)… But that is besides the point we are dealing with dragons and unknown now…
