Losing the physical self

After years of keeping sickness free I have been completly sidelined with my second cold virus in the space of a few weeks. I hesitate to mention the word flu because I believe that term should only be used when it can kill you. I try not to let the frustration get to me because in the great scheme of things it’s nothing and a positive outcome was that I had time in bed to read a book called A million little pieces. It is the story of a 23 year olds time in a treatment centre for drugs and alcohol rehabilitation, after destroying his body and his mind almost beyond repair. The fact that I am regularly visiting a treatment centre to see Anita made the book more interesting. It was pretty obvious the book had been embellished and although I can’t see the similarity of life in Anita’s hospital it did offer some an interesting insight into addiction and how your life can be affected at an early age. I think Anita would find it a decent read, mostly because the attitude of the individual involved has similarities to her own. He is told that he must follow a certain process otherwise his chances of survival are a million to one. He continues to ignore this and follows his own path; he is a very bloody minded individual. The same single-minded personality that could self destroy actually gave him an edge in recovery. It’s worth pointing out that this book has also generated a large amount of controversy and some people have pointed out the danger in an approach that may not be that successful. It should be treated as a work of fiction but is still a worthy read.

One thing referred to in the book is the Ta de ching, roughly translated as The Book of the Way and its Virtue. I keep a copy of it with me on my hanheld computer. The widom of the Ta (pronounced Dao) de ching is beyond belief, it was written around 600 BCE by a sage called Laozi and is one of the most important in Chinese philosophy. Below is one of the very first quotes from it which in hindsight reflects an earlier post I made.

Free from desire, you realize the mystery.
Caught in desire, you can only see the manifestations.

Yet mystery and manifestations
arise from the same source.
This source is called darkness.

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

This entry was posted on Saturday, April 8th, 2006 at 3:31 pm and is filed under Enjoying. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.