Well, I sure flat ass flunked the empty boat test :-) As, apparently did Buddha and Jesus. However, did Chuang Tzu actually become an empty boat, who achieved nothing and nobody recognized him? If so, how did we know about him today? :-)
The other day, someone who deals with a lot of people in his work asked me why I keep tangling with messed up people online, and I said it gives 81-plus-years me something to do besides watch even more TV and read even more news online and talk even more to myself. It’s a job, for which I don’t get paid, whereas he gets paid to deal with idiots where he works.
For me, Poetic Outlaws is the place I visit online, where people seem to be swimming against the herd currents, seeking to be who they really are, which actually is a whole lot easier than trying to be someone else, which require sjust about all of our energy to pull off.
When he talks about "freeing himself from achievement," I don't think he's saying we shouldn't achieve anything. Rather, "emptying our own boat" means not tying our value or worth to achievement. It's about moving through life without clinging to the belief that we must accomplish something grand to have meaning.
This also means letting go of pride and the need for recognition. The problem isn't achievement itself--it's the attachment to it, the feeling that it HAS to happen or we'll be left feeling worthless. Even when we do achieve something, that attachment often shifts into a fear of losing the status, recognition, or identity that comes with it.
This is why attachment is often described as the root of suffering. It's perfectly healthy to have goals and pursue them, but clinging to specific outcomes is what breeds frustration, anxiety, and anger.
An "empty boat," then, is someone who doesn't depend on recognition or validation, and has no need to impress or dominate. They simply move in harmony with what is, without building their identity around success or status.
I don't really like the empty boat example. We don't yell at the empty boat cause it's not listening lol... not sure how that relates to being at peace or going with any sort of flow. Does that debunk the whole point? Surely not.
I think there are several important points in Chuang Tzu’s poem, and they do not entirely gee and haw together, which perhaps is the point?
The poem is a culture jammer? A systems bunker buster? A call for fools?
For sure, any argument I get into requires my presence.
While I think to be invisible to other people might be an interesting life, a game of sorts, I like mixing it up with people I like, don’t like, don’t know well and may never know beyond a brief encounter.
Yet, is the point of life to become “invisible” to others?
That’s the 9th insight in James Redfield’s "The Celestine Prophesy”, published by Time-Warner, which made Redfield Time Magazine’s “The Celestine Prophet” and a whole hot of media publicity and money, to the extent he moved from Alabama to Florida, which has no state income tax.
So, Redfield sure didn’t reach his own 9th insight :-).
According to a woman I later came to know pretty well, she and Redfield attended the Unity Church on Highland Avenue in Birmingham., Alabama, my hometown. I was familiar with the church, having attended some services there.
The woman said she and Redfield had bounced ideas off of each other at the church, and he had turned their ideas into “The Celestine Prophecy”, and he gave her no credit and none of the loot, and she wasn’t exactly happy about being invisible and poor, while Redfield was raking in many millions off that book, and many millions off later books, and off speaking and leading a new mega religion.
I seriously doubt Redfield would have cared for living as she was living, as I was living and would live, as Chuang Tzu lived.
Am I jealous of James Redfield?
Hmmm.
Do I want his karma for preaching something he had not lived himself?
Hmmm.
Would I like to sit down and discuss stuff with Redrield?
Hmmm.
Would he want to sit down and discuss stuff with me?
Hmmm.
Would he be interested in reading my books at the free internet library: archive.com?
Hmmm.
In Chuang Tzu’s time, writings and oral traditions were how stuff was passed down, so someone had to know Chaung Tzu for us to know a little about him today, so he was not invisible in his time
Today, we have the internet and the web and even the dark web, and whereas being read there and watched and heard in The Redneck Mystic Lawyer podcasts by people at You/Tube and Torrent platforms all over the world is not the eternal life of which Jesus in the Gospels spoke, and of which Buddha spoke before him, it certainly allows someone who shoots his mouth off in cyberspace to haunt humanity for a very long time.
That reminds me of a old Sufi saying, “Let God kill him who himself does not know and yet presumes to show others the way to the door of His kingdom."
That reminds me of the massive human space satellite junkyards orbiting the Earth, navigation hazards for visiting space traveling races, but not for angels and demons, who are of a different fiber altogether.
I wonder how Redfield, or Donald Trump, or Joe Biden, or Vladimir Putin, or the men leading Israel and Hamas, and Christians, Jews and Muslims, for just a few examples, would cope with being disturbed and spanked and stood and humiliated before endless mirrors, and their ignorance elucidated by angels known in their own Scriptures?
I can imagine Chuang Tzu would have welcomed it
l can imagine he actually experienced it.
I can imagine his poem is a multilayered weapon of mass destruction of maya, hubris, self deception, self importance, ignorance.
Well, we don't yell at the empty boat because we know the collision wasn't intentional. But if someone is in it, our minds quickly assume blame--that it was done on purpose.
So it's not the accident itself that upsets us. It's our own ego--the belief that someone meant to harm us, that there's someone to blame, that we've been singled out. Instead of simply seeing the event as something that happened, we layer it with our own assumptions and interpretations.
To "empty the boat" is to let go of that ego. To release those assumptions and projections and to see things as they are, responding to reality rather than the story we've attached to it.
Wow, such a powerful poem both in content, structure and flow. Read it out loud! Beauty radiates from the vessel of sound and quickly dissipates into emptiness.
These lines stand out to me, as they remind me of Zen master Rinzai’s use of the “true person of no rank” in his teachings. Who is the true person of no rank?
Such simple and sacred wisdom which is alas, near impossible to embrace in our culture of cultivating achievement, material possessions, and wealth. For example, I spent over an hour the other day looking for the perfect boar hair brush (which I've yet to find...). And how can I possibly be a filmmaker without ardently seeking funding and public recognition? However, rather than pathologize and demonize our personal and societal habits, we can be grateful for works of art such as 'The Empty Boat' for they point the way towards right action. Towards right being. And at the very least, help us remain afloat.
Simplicity. My objective. Freedom for my soul to move about. Mexico, here I come! Follow this journey @zihuawriter on instagram or Write in Mexico on Facebook. Most important: free your words...to elevate all beings. Be empty.
This was a timely read for me. Since I am currently navigating the paradoxical journey of wanting my writing to be known but not me, wanting my writing to be known without self promotion, and wanting to make a living as a writer without all the marketing/promotion needed to make that even a bit possible.
Well, I sure flat ass flunked the empty boat test :-) As, apparently did Buddha and Jesus. However, did Chuang Tzu actually become an empty boat, who achieved nothing and nobody recognized him? If so, how did we know about him today? :-)
The other day, someone who deals with a lot of people in his work asked me why I keep tangling with messed up people online, and I said it gives 81-plus-years me something to do besides watch even more TV and read even more news online and talk even more to myself. It’s a job, for which I don’t get paid, whereas he gets paid to deal with idiots where he works.
For me, Poetic Outlaws is the place I visit online, where people seem to be swimming against the herd currents, seeking to be who they really are, which actually is a whole lot easier than trying to be someone else, which require sjust about all of our energy to pull off.
When he talks about "freeing himself from achievement," I don't think he's saying we shouldn't achieve anything. Rather, "emptying our own boat" means not tying our value or worth to achievement. It's about moving through life without clinging to the belief that we must accomplish something grand to have meaning.
This also means letting go of pride and the need for recognition. The problem isn't achievement itself--it's the attachment to it, the feeling that it HAS to happen or we'll be left feeling worthless. Even when we do achieve something, that attachment often shifts into a fear of losing the status, recognition, or identity that comes with it.
This is why attachment is often described as the root of suffering. It's perfectly healthy to have goals and pursue them, but clinging to specific outcomes is what breeds frustration, anxiety, and anger.
An "empty boat," then, is someone who doesn't depend on recognition or validation, and has no need to impress or dominate. They simply move in harmony with what is, without building their identity around success or status.
Well put
Agreed, a long life lesson for me, heralded by this poem that fell out of me in 1992, as I recall:
"The Mockingbird”
I happened upon a mockingbird
singing its fool head off –
I asked it how and why it sang?
But all it did was look ahead,
all it did was sing.
It never turned to see if I was watching,
or listened for money jingling in my pockets,
or asked if I liked its music,
or expected a recording contract –
It was too busy singing
to pay any attention to me.
Thus did I learn
the greatest sin of all
is to kill a mockingbird.
I don't really like the empty boat example. We don't yell at the empty boat cause it's not listening lol... not sure how that relates to being at peace or going with any sort of flow. Does that debunk the whole point? Surely not.
I think there are several important points in Chuang Tzu’s poem, and they do not entirely gee and haw together, which perhaps is the point?
The poem is a culture jammer? A systems bunker buster? A call for fools?
For sure, any argument I get into requires my presence.
While I think to be invisible to other people might be an interesting life, a game of sorts, I like mixing it up with people I like, don’t like, don’t know well and may never know beyond a brief encounter.
Yet, is the point of life to become “invisible” to others?
That’s the 9th insight in James Redfield’s "The Celestine Prophesy”, published by Time-Warner, which made Redfield Time Magazine’s “The Celestine Prophet” and a whole hot of media publicity and money, to the extent he moved from Alabama to Florida, which has no state income tax.
So, Redfield sure didn’t reach his own 9th insight :-).
According to a woman I later came to know pretty well, she and Redfield attended the Unity Church on Highland Avenue in Birmingham., Alabama, my hometown. I was familiar with the church, having attended some services there.
The woman said she and Redfield had bounced ideas off of each other at the church, and he had turned their ideas into “The Celestine Prophecy”, and he gave her no credit and none of the loot, and she wasn’t exactly happy about being invisible and poor, while Redfield was raking in many millions off that book, and many millions off later books, and off speaking and leading a new mega religion.
I seriously doubt Redfield would have cared for living as she was living, as I was living and would live, as Chuang Tzu lived.
Am I jealous of James Redfield?
Hmmm.
Do I want his karma for preaching something he had not lived himself?
Hmmm.
Would I like to sit down and discuss stuff with Redrield?
Hmmm.
Would he want to sit down and discuss stuff with me?
Hmmm.
Would he be interested in reading my books at the free internet library: archive.com?
Hmmm.
In Chuang Tzu’s time, writings and oral traditions were how stuff was passed down, so someone had to know Chaung Tzu for us to know a little about him today, so he was not invisible in his time
Today, we have the internet and the web and even the dark web, and whereas being read there and watched and heard in The Redneck Mystic Lawyer podcasts by people at You/Tube and Torrent platforms all over the world is not the eternal life of which Jesus in the Gospels spoke, and of which Buddha spoke before him, it certainly allows someone who shoots his mouth off in cyberspace to haunt humanity for a very long time.
That reminds me of a old Sufi saying, “Let God kill him who himself does not know and yet presumes to show others the way to the door of His kingdom."
That reminds me of the massive human space satellite junkyards orbiting the Earth, navigation hazards for visiting space traveling races, but not for angels and demons, who are of a different fiber altogether.
I wonder how Redfield, or Donald Trump, or Joe Biden, or Vladimir Putin, or the men leading Israel and Hamas, and Christians, Jews and Muslims, for just a few examples, would cope with being disturbed and spanked and stood and humiliated before endless mirrors, and their ignorance elucidated by angels known in their own Scriptures?
I can imagine Chuang Tzu would have welcomed it
l can imagine he actually experienced it.
I can imagine his poem is a multilayered weapon of mass destruction of maya, hubris, self deception, self importance, ignorance.
A puzzle with many moving parts.
A cosmic joke.
By a fool.
Well, we don't yell at the empty boat because we know the collision wasn't intentional. But if someone is in it, our minds quickly assume blame--that it was done on purpose.
So it's not the accident itself that upsets us. It's our own ego--the belief that someone meant to harm us, that there's someone to blame, that we've been singled out. Instead of simply seeing the event as something that happened, we layer it with our own assumptions and interpretations.
To "empty the boat" is to let go of that ego. To release those assumptions and projections and to see things as they are, responding to reality rather than the story we've attached to it.
Wow, such a powerful poem both in content, structure and flow. Read it out loud! Beauty radiates from the vessel of sound and quickly dissipates into emptiness.
Thank you for sharing, as always. 🙏
These lines stand out to me, as they remind me of Zen master Rinzai’s use of the “true person of no rank” in his teachings. Who is the true person of no rank?
He will flow like Tao, unseen,
He will go about like Life itself
With no name and no home.
Simple is he, without distinction.
An antidote to the hustler grifters and success porn peddlers
Magnificent.
Truth is to be oneself; when we are full of imagination and judgment we are not yet ourselves.
Self: the great illusion.
An empty vessel contains All That Is .. Thank you for this reminder today
I agree with the way, harmony and simplicity.
However, though there be no self in the boat, there will be a visible skin.
Such simple and sacred wisdom which is alas, near impossible to embrace in our culture of cultivating achievement, material possessions, and wealth. For example, I spent over an hour the other day looking for the perfect boar hair brush (which I've yet to find...). And how can I possibly be a filmmaker without ardently seeking funding and public recognition? However, rather than pathologize and demonize our personal and societal habits, we can be grateful for works of art such as 'The Empty Boat' for they point the way towards right action. Towards right being. And at the very least, help us remain afloat.
I once dreamt I was Chuang Tzu and then awoke to discover I was a butterfly
".. Chuang Tzu is not concerned with words and formulas about reality, but with the direct existential grasp of reality in itself …”
A man after my own heart. Thank you for sharing this with us.
Simplicity. My objective. Freedom for my soul to move about. Mexico, here I come! Follow this journey @zihuawriter on instagram or Write in Mexico on Facebook. Most important: free your words...to elevate all beings. Be empty.
'Free your words'
Thank you for this
Wise words indeed ❤️
An extraordinary point of view, probably Tao.
Definately, not probably. Chuang Tsu is one of the 3 imortals, along with Lao Tsu and Lao Tse.
This was a timely read for me. Since I am currently navigating the paradoxical journey of wanting my writing to be known but not me, wanting my writing to be known without self promotion, and wanting to make a living as a writer without all the marketing/promotion needed to make that even a bit possible.
I loved this poem.
That was Amazing.
So much moral truth to that poem
And so relevant for today's world and for the future.