"Another way of putting it would be (without knowing Chinese) to propose this new translation of the first line of the Tao Te Ching: “A way that is entirely laid out, no, it is not the way.” I told you that I have encountered in my life a true teaching. One of the signs of its truth, for me, is that it never proposes an entirely prescribed path. No, at every step the entire dilemma is revisited. For me, nothing is resolved once and for all. And what I have always loved in you is your refusal of a prearranged path, and that’s important to me because alone one can’t sustain such a position. We must be a number of people to help each other, to awaken one another."
René Daumal from a letter to Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes / November 1941
Excerpted from Letters on the Search for Awakening 1930-1944, translated and published
by Dolmen Meadow Editions / Toronto.
Excerpted from Letters on the Search for Awakening 1930-1944, translated and published
by Dolmen Meadow Editions / Toronto.
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