The segment describing our common condition, and a treatment that allows day-to-day life on a much better basis — greatly impressed me today. I think such enormous waste of our potential is a direct consequence of our ignorance. We are confused about the difference between what is superfluous, optional, redundant to our essential flourishing. Moreover, I am who I am. My parents, the time and place of my coming to adulthood too were a matter of destiny. Why me, then and there? Unknowable! Everyone starts somewhere.

Go ahead and read these lines for yourself. Read with patience, to allow the words to soak into your mind and body. Absorb the suggestion…

One who understands the conditions of life
does not struggle with what is superfluous to life.

One who understands the conditions of destiny
does not struggle with what cannot be known.

To sustain the body we are dependent
upon its possessions,
but at times there is an excess of possessions
and still the body is not sustained.

To sustain life we are dependent on the body
not to be separated from us.
And yet, even when the body
has not been separated from the person,
life has disintegrated.

When life arrives it cannot be turned away;
when it leaves it cannot be held back.

Ah, the men of the world think
that providing for the body is adequate
for preserving life.
When this is inadequate,
what then can be done that is adequate?

Although all that can be done
will be inadequate, men feel compelled
to do what they consider
to be unavoidable.

For those who wish not be shackled
to the body,
it is best to renounce the world.
Renouncing the world,
they are free
from its demands.
Free from its demands,
they can be just and peaceful.
Being just and peaceful,
they are able to reinvigorate life,
in reinvigorating life,
they move
towards the tao.

Zhuangzi trans. by Hyunn Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, Book 19

P.S. The suggestion comes that it is possible to renounce the logic of behavior and habits of the surrounding society without becoming a monk or a nun. Shall we seek freedom right here and right now?Go!