When A Cat Falls Out of A Tree, It Lets Go of Itself

In the pursuit of an honest education, one is bound to realize their entire view has been wrong, maybe more than once.

This is extremely uncomfortable and humbling. It's easy to want to give up here - but if you keep pressing on, you eventually get to the bottom of the truth: you have so far to go still.

After a while you pass the misery of shame and discomfort and settle into a comfortable acceptance. You are ok with the journey now, ok with not knowing, ok with the practice. You start to feel semi capable but no longer feel the shame of what you didn't know -

This is where a second ego trap awaits you: the judgement and scorn for others set in their ways.

Here it's easy to feel like you are one of the "enlightened ones" doing the "right work," and to look down on in some way those stuck in less enlightened paths of travel than you.

A second awakening is coming here: everyone is on their own path and it has absolutley no comparison to you or the next person. No one is above or below you, and the reality is you may be stuck in your "new" ways now too - awaiting another reality check that you don't know what you don't know.

I love this Alan Watts quote on cats: "When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself. The cat becomes completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. But if a cat were about to fall out of a tree and suddenly make up its mind that it didn't want to fall, it would become tense and rigid, and would be just a bag of broken bones upon landing."

I think the secret of all this is to relax into the squirming, and realize everybody else is worried about the same fall, too. You are not alone.