Afterthought: Liu Ming on Immortality

Smiling at how many times “I” referred to “I”…

“The heart of our [Taoist] view is the human relationship with Nature. When we self-reflect as human beings, we discover that being human is nothing extra-ordinary and, even more importantly, we discover that our existence doesn’t need to be repaired, fixed, or reunited with Nature. It is immutably part of Nature. It’s no use to imitate saints or act in a way premature to your own experience. Simply remain in your experience and feel its real quality. This is the path of immortality. In the West we are extreme idealists, expecting too much and in a constant state of failure because of it. We aspire and hope and fail. When we reflect and discover our own energetic reality, we can see that everything we do has transmission, has energetic effect. We needn’t struggle to be good rather than real, to remain young rather than growing old, to avoid making mistakes. The only point is to appreciate our actions in their largest context, without measuring them or looking beyond them to something better.”

– Liu Ming