A Saying on the Law

1. You have heard it said by those of old that the Way to salvation lies in following the divine Law—the Torah, the Dhamma, the Word. You are taught that these laws are absolute, a fixed and final measure for your life, and that by holding to them, you build your house upon the rock.

2. But I say to you, the word is not the Way. The teaching is not the Truth.

3. A law that is written becomes a fetter. A teaching that is memorized becomes a cage. You mistake the finger pointing at the moon for the moon itself.

4. The Law is circa the Truth. It stands around the mystery, but it is not the mystery. It is an approximation, a soft outline drawn in the sand around a boundless ocean.

5. You have heard, "Follow the Law," but I say, "Become the Way."

6. Do not be a servant to the sharp edges of doctrine. Live instead in the gentle, unfolding grace of the "circa." When the Law says, "Be righteous," it is pointing to a place. But you must walk the path, and the path is in this very moment.

7. Those who count their works, who measure their days by the Law, are like a man who believes he can hold the wind in a jar. They are not liberated; they are confined by their own measurements.

8. Let go of your need for the final answer. Let go of the belief that the Law can save you. The Law is a signpost, but the Kingdom is within you.

9. Live circa this inner Kingdom. Live around this sacred, unknowable presence.

10. The Law says, "Do this," and "Do not do that." This is the duality of like and dislike, the disease of the mind.

11. But the Way simply is.

12. Do not build your house on the rock of doctrine, for that rock will be worn away by the waters of time. Build your house on no-thing. Build it on the letting go of all preferences.

13. Be at peace in the "in-between." Embrace the mystery that you are around the Truth, and in that soft focus, you will find the liberation that no law can define and no words can destroy.