The Tao in the low places

A scholar named Dongguo asked Zhuangzi where the Way could be found.

Zhuangzi said: there's nowhere it isn't.

Dongguo said: can you be specific?

In the ant. In the weed on the roadside. In the tiles of the roof. In the piss and the shit, said Zhuangzi.

Dongguo stopped answering, because his question had just been ruined.

Zhuangzi said: your questions are too fine. There's a man who markets pigs, and he steps on their trotters to judge weight, and the older the pig the more accurate it gets. That's what I mean by getting more accurate the lower you go.

Most people find this either funny or offensive. I find it useful.

It's an argument against only looking for meaning in elevated places. The insight you need this year is far more likely to come out of a bad Tuesday, an argument about dishes, a job you were relieved to lose, than out of the retreat on the mountain.

Lofty understanding is often just the story you tell after you've stopped paying attention to the floor.

The floor is where the material is. Your body at three a.m. Your calendar. What you avoid when nobody's asking.

MOJOWAY starts with the ordinary material: what happened this week, said plainly. That's not a smaller ambition. It's the only place where self-knowledge is grounded enough to change anything.