by Dan Millman
From a transcendent perspective, bodies come and go with no more effect on Consciousness than a leaf falling from a tree affects the whole. You can mourn the loss that you associate with the death of the physical body without accepting it as the only truth. In the eternal present, even as loved ones cast off the husk of separateness, they continue to inhabit you in memory and in every way they have touched you over the course of your time together.
What you refer to as “I” is not merely aware—“I” is Consciousness that is never born and never dies. With this realization, death of the physical body becomes entirely natural and acceptable. The sages took life as it came, and took death without care.
You may grasp this insight now, then you may forget, then remember. In those moments of remembering, when this transcendent truth penetrates your heart, you realize who you truly are—and you attain eternal life.
The poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, experienced this realization early in life: “Since boyhood, by repeating my own name silently, an intense awareness of individuality came, then seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this was not a confused state, but clear and sure, utterly beyond words, where death was an almost laughable impossibility.”
I was tired from tussling with ideas, old and new, and in no condition to contemplate anything more, at least for the night. I recalled something Socrates had once told me: “There is no victory over death; there is only the realization of Who we all really are.” Now I could understand his meaning. Even so, I would still grieve the deaths of friends and loved ones from a conventional state of awareness. But I was beginning to grasp that such loss was not the only truth. My grandparents remained with me even now, in my memory, in my heart, and in the many ways they’d inspired me during our time together.
TWENTY-THREE
* * *
Like the winter, spring came early. Surely Hua Chi would arrive soon—if she was coming at all. I started to feel restless again, aware once more that this school, this farm, was a way station, not my ultimate destination.
One night I stayed up to complete the writing. I wasn’t prepared for it to end so soon, but I was able to transcribe the final section almost word for word. In an apparent window of lucidity and burst of energy, Socrates must also have poured out his final words in frenzied moments of inspiration, completing his work before relinquishing it to the mountain.
Both conventional and transcendental states of awareness have value. If you can’t find peace here in daily life, you won’t find it elsewhere. Reaching beyond the conventional mind-set isn’t an act of will but of remembrance. When you’ve experienced deep relaxation, it’s easier to return to that state. The same holds true once you’ve tasted the transcendent.
Even in moments of elevated awareness, you’ll need to take out the trash and do the laundry. So even in the midst of everyday life—as you do what you do according to all that has shaped you—you’d be wise to live as if time exists, so you can keep an organized calendar. Live as if you make conscious choices, so you can take responsibility for them. Live as if accidents happen, so you can stay vigilant. Live as if you’re an independent individual, so you fully appreciate your innate worth and singular destiny. And live as if death is real, so that you can savor the precious opportunity that is life on planet Earth.
Until you experience transcendent truths directly, stay open to the possibility. You can bridge conventional and transcendental awareness whenever you remember to shift awareness from one to the other, according to the needs of the moment. In the meantime, keep faith with paradox, humor, and change, and honor the illusions that still apply in everyday life.
It has never been easy to rise above circumstance and appreciate the perfection of life unfolding. Much of the time your attention will, quite appropriately, remain focused on everyday duties. But now and then, remember your sense of balance, perspective, and humor—they are the better parts of wisdom.
Welcome to the realm of flesh and spirit, and to the truths that animate each of them. Welcome home.
With these final words, my work was complete, my part in all this finished, at least for the present. And when I reread all I had written—surprised to see only twenty pages of handwritten text—I experienced those words not as their author but rather as the translator of my mentor’s insights.
As I sat at that small desk on a farm in a forest across the world from my home, I had to face the fact that my own awareness, perhaps like most people’s, was focused mostly on the conventional level. But also like most people, I had a yearning to transcend, a longing for some kind of liberation. Which, I supposed, lay at the core of all religious and spiritual paths. Other than the occasional glimpses and visions generated by Socrates in years past, or through meditation or psychedelics or other mystical means, I had no direct access to the transcendent states to which he referred, except through that shift of attention, that act of remembering.
I knew that serious philosophers, physicists, and psychologists have written in exquisite and sometimes excruciating detail about the nature of time, choice, the self, and death from various viewpoints. But Soc’s understanding of paradox—the nature of conventional and transcendental truths—was the first model I had found to reconcile these contradictory views about reality. I could only hope that these existential insights, as I had articulated them, might inform the lives of others as they had informed my own. I was still a work in progress, but now I’d glimpsed new possibilities.
* * *
Two days later, as the sun disappeared over the mountains, I stepped into the stream and sat under the waterfall Chun Han and I had built, letting the waters pound on my head and shoulders, cleansing body and mind. Through the curtain of water descending around me, I heard laughter and Chun Han’s hoarse bark.
Later that evening we gathered to celebrate the coming of spring. Everywhere I looked I saw colored lights, sizzling fireworks, dazzling costumes, and whirling acrobats—my students. I wasn’t the coach tonight. Under Chun Han’s direction, they sprang into the air again and again, celebrating their freedom from the usual bonds of gravity.
A group of my students took me by the arms and led me in a wild dance. Their faces shining, the young men and women twirled round and round, singing a Chinese chant over and over until I lost myself in the lights and laughter, floating off the floor of the pavilion where everyone now seemed lighter than air. And somewhere in the distance I heard a few of them singing, “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. . . .”
As I walked back toward my quiet loft in the early-morning hours, I could still hear the sounds of the mandolin, the flute, the dutar, and the drum, rising up into the night sky, floating up toward a moon as bright and yellow as yak’s cheese. On impulse, I wandered over to the water feature I now thought of as Chun Han Fall, to get one last look at the leaping waters in the light of the lanterns and a setting moon.
I had my own reason to celebrate, having completed the writing mission that had formed the backdrop of my time here, accomplishing something that had seemed impossible a few months before when I’d first found Soc’s letter. I felt as if the great river of the Tao had carried me like a leaf down its shifting currents.
Sometimes those currents take a sharp turn.
The following day, after the evening meal, I returned to my loft and reached into the knapsack for the journals as I’d done so many times, looking forward to reading through them again.
Perplexed, I emptied the pack. Then I searched every inch of the loft. Twice. It made no sense, but I had to acknowledge that it had happened: both Soc’s journal and my own had vanished without a trace.
TWENTY-FOUR
* * *
I wish I could say that the months of training and writing had left me with an abiding sense of nonattachment and prepared me to accept this loss with grace. But at that moment such a state of detachment felt idealistic and beyond my capacity. As self-critical thoughts assailed me—Why didn’t I photocopy Soc’s
journal in Hong Kong when I had the chance? Why didn’t I think of hand-copying each page as I wrote?—emotions and adrenaline flooded my body.
I must have misplaced the journals, I thought. This notion triggered another round of furious (and fruitless) searching. I could have walked in my sleep and left them somewhere. No, I’d seen the journals earlier that morning. I now understood how Socrates must have felt when he recovered from his fever without the journal or any clear sense of its location.
Who could have taken them? I wondered. It made no sense. No one at the farm had any reason to take them, or any knowledge of the journals in the first place. No one, except for Mei Bao, could even read them, and she had only to ask. I pictured her face and the faces of Chun Han, Master Ch’an, and my students. As I meditated on each of their faces, my body calmed. The panic and anger, having reached a pitch of intensity, subsided. And as my body relaxed, so did my mind. Finally I accepted reality: The journals weren’t here. I had no idea where they were. Nothing would happen during the night. With that, I gave myself to sleep.
On my way to find Mei Bao early the next morning, I stopped short as a familiar figure with white-streaked hair and clad in a tracksuit mounted the steps of the main house. “Hua Chi!” I called out and rushed forward.
She turned and smiled, saying, “Such an enthusiastic American-style greeting!” Hearing that, I stopped and bowed. She took a long, approving look at me. “You look well, Dan. I would have come sooner but for the frost. We’ll depart in a few days.”
“Hua Chi, I have to tell—”
“We’ll speak soon, Dan. No doubt you have much to share. But first I must pay respects to my brother and to Mei Bao.”
Not to be deterred from her purpose, Hua Chi turned and disappeared through the beaded curtain, where those who might have answers to my dilemma were now sequestered. I reluctantly left to join the morning work duty. I wasn’t even sure what I would tell her first, given everything that had occurred during her long absence. I decided I would start with the disappearance of my journals.
I’d been trying to convince myself that the loss of Soc’s journal and my notebook didn’t ultimately matter. The world didn’t go spinning off its axis—only my world, my goals. The event itself, the missing journals, was fact. It was my reaction to the loss that preoccupied me.
A short time later, Hua Chi found me and invited me to stroll with her around the farm’s perimeter. As we skirted the edge of the forest, she began, “My brother and Mei Bao are pleased with you both as a student and as a teacher. Whatever may happen in the future, you’ve made a contribution.”
I spoke more rapidly than I’d intended: “I’m glad to hear that, Hua Chi, and so glad to see you, but back in Hong Kong I told you about a journal I’d found. I’ve been writing a longer version, considerable work, and a day or two ago the original journal and my own notebook went missing. I can’t understand—”
“Oh, don’t trouble yourself about that,” she said with a casual wave of her hand. “They’re perfectly safe. In good hands. I just borrowed them.”
I froze in place at the far end of a newly planted field. Hua Chi stopped as well, as if to admire the work of the farmers. Suffering from tunnel vision, I was in no state to admire or even see anything around us. Hearing her words, I felt relieved, furious, mystified, speechless. But not for long. “You what?” I said. “But why? When were you going to tell me?”
“Oh, I thought it best to see what happened first.”
What kind of riddle was this? Had Papa Joe shape-shifted into her likeness? At that moment, it wouldn’t have surprised me. Nothing would. I could barely get two words out: “Explain. Please.”
Hua Chi shrugged pleasantly, relaxed as usual, and, resuming her walk back toward the dining hall, said, “Those months ago, over tea, Dan, you mentioned a journal—and that someone was looking for it.”
“Yes, I remember.”
“And do you also recall giving me a piece of paper with a woman’s name, and a telephone number?”
“Yes, but what does that have to do with—”
“I called the number a few nights later and reached the woman, Ama. Her voice expressed strength and kindness. I gave her your message about finding the journal. She sounded sincerely pleased, even excited for you. So I introduced myself and told her the circumstances of our first meeting, and how I had made your travel arrangements. She thanked me, and we said good-bye.”
“Thank you for doing that. But I still don’t see—”
“About ten days later, during my morning practice in the park, I noticed a man watching our group from a respectful distance. He had trained in the martial arts; that much I could tell from the way he stood. When we finished the form, he asked if anyone in our group knew a woman named Hua Chi. I told him that I was reasonably familiar with such a woman, and asked him what interest he had in her—one can’t be too careful.”
She continued as we walked behind the pavilion, entered the dining hall, and sat in the far corner near the exit to continue this private conversation. “As it turned out, he was the man you cautioned me about—rightly, I think. He told me he was determined to find the man who had the journal, to do whatever it took to find and retrieve it. He seemed certain that ‘this Hua Chi woman’ was a link to fulfilling his mission. So, continuing my little intrigue, I told him that I could arrange a meeting the next morning. Early. In the park, before practice.”
We each filled a plate and a bowl with vegetables and porridge, the usual meal. Then we returned to our seats. Hua Chi set down her plate and bowl and continued her story. “He seemed only mildly surprised to see me there, alone. I think he’d suspected me all along. We talked. I made a decision that may yet find a good resolution.”
“Would that resolution have anything to do with returning my journals?” I asked.
“I think so,” she answered. “But that’s not for me to say. You see, he asked to speak with you directly.”
“Ah, well,” I said, not without sarcasm, “you can just give me his phone number when we return to Hong Kong.”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” she said, pointing behind me, over my shoulder. “He accompanied me here.”
I turned to see the man I knew as Pájaro framed by the exit door. In his hands he held the journals.
Hua Chi rose, her plate untouched, and left us alone.
TWENTY-FIVE
* * *
He wore an old pair of jeans, a T-shirt, and a cap with a red star, like my own. When our eyes met, he looked down. He stood as if waiting for permission to come forward. When he finally approached, he held out the journal and my notebook, setting them on the table in front of me. He sat across from me, in the place vacated by Hua Chi. His gaze still downward, he said, “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused you, Dan.”
“You’ve read the journals,” I said, on high alert, considering our last encounter.
He nodded, and then spoke softly. “First I read the notes written by your teacher. They made sense only after I read your . . . translation.” He paused then, as if searching back in time. “If I’d taken the real journal from you on the mountain, I wouldn’t have understood anything.” Then: “I regret striking you. At the time, I didn’t see any other way. . . .”
As my questions jockeyed for position at the front of the line, Pájaro looked up, and we made real eye contact for the first time. “I don’t know how to thank you—or how to compensate you for what I did.”
I said the first thing that came to mind: “Well, you did leave me the five dollars.”
We both smiled. And that’s how I came to share a meal with the man who had pursued me across the world, and who I had believed intended me great bodily harm if we ever met again. As my students looked on from a distance, shy but ever curious, Pájaro began to explain what had driven him.
“Thirty years ago, my father was driving to work when he saw a man stumbling along the roadway—”
I interjected. “Pájaro, I know
that your father gave Socrates a ride and took him to an infirmary. I also know about your dad’s illness and passing. . . .”
Bewildered, he asked, “How did you—?”
“Soon after I arrived in Albuquerque,” I said, “I found a schoolteacher named Ama. Her father, the doctor who treated Socrates, had told her a story many years before, about the gardener who sought his counsel and who was seeking a journal. I helped her recall that story. So I can understand your father’s desperate search. But why you, after all these years? And how did you know about me?”
“After my father’s death,” he said, “I raised myself with the help of an aunt who let me stay in her back room and raid her fridge in return for yard work. I grew up pretty wild—studied survival skills, learned to track and hunt. I cleaned the bathrooms and mats at a local karate school in exchange for classes. I did well in sports but spent most of my time alone, preparing myself.”
“For what?”
“My father’s mission—it gave me a purpose, I suppose. I vowed not to die like him. I came to believe that if I found the journal, I might not die at all. . . .”
He shook his head. “I don’t know what I was thinking. Striving for physical immortality would make perfect sense if people stopped having children. But as things stand, if such a secret were discovered, only the wealthy would have access to it, or it would create a chaotic, overpopulated world.”
He’s right, I thought. At some point the elderly need to die and be recycled—it’s the house rules, as Soc would say. Love of life is one thing. Fear of death is quite another.
“But that doesn’t explain how you found me and followed me—or how you found Hua Chi.”
“Ama, the woman you met. She told me all about you—everything I needed to know.”
A shiver passed through me. A bitter, metallic taste of betrayal constricted my throat. I had to ask: “Did you have to force her, or was she glad to tell you everything?”
