Paths, Not All Straight or Narrow

The front lawns in the suburb where I live display varying degrees of maintenance.  Some are impeccably trimmed; others are half-wild.  Although my lawn fits within the mid-range on that spectrum, it does have one distinctive feature, especially when the grass becomes dormant in the winter.  There is a diagonal path across it where the grass is kept matted down by the regular passage of neighborhood cats.  (Even though my wife and I are not sure how many cats use the path, it is clearly defined.)  That mark on our front lawn reveals to me that cats have joined a long tradition of animals and humans who have found it wise to follow a path that has been trod before, a path either secular or sacred.

Almost anywhere you look in the history of animals or people, you can come across the idea of following a path.  Just to take some examples from the U.S.:  James Fenimore Cooper's 1840 book The Pathfinder was inspired in part by stories about native Americans being skilled in finding their way in the wilderness.  American legend also contains the story of how in 1775 the hero Daniel Boone found an opening through the Appalachian Mountains, thus making possible the "Wilderness Road" for Europeans to move further west.  In fact, the trail he found was already there, having been used by Indians for generations.  And how did the Indians know about it?  By watching animals, particularly the buffalo.  They were the original pathfinders.

Turning to the other side of the globe, one of the most important scriptures of Buddhism, by its very name, indicates that honing one's life in a spiritually honorable fashion is like following a path.  A collection of elegant sayings of the Buddha is named The Dhammapada, which could be translated "The Path of Truth" or "The Path of the Teaching."  Furthermore, the idea that the followers of Buddhism are, in a sense, walking behind the Buddha is given beautiful artistic expression by the Buddha sometimes being represented symbolically by two footprints carved side by side on the ground in stone.

The religious symbol of a "path" or "way" is just as explicit, although in a somewhat mystical manner, in philosophical Taoism.  Particularly in Taoism's premier scripture, the Tao te ching.  In most English translations of that small classic, the word "Tao" is even translated as "way" because of the double meaning that English word can hold.  In one meaning, "the way" is the nature of the world, in the sense that we might speak of "the way things are."  In a second sense, "the way" is the way we ought to live our lives to best coordinate ourselves with the way the world truly is.

True, the cats that follow a path of tramped-down grass on my front lawn might feel they are just taking the smoothest route to the bowl of food my neighbor puts out.  But I know the cats are following a widespread and noble tradition by being led by fellow creatures who have traveled a path before them.

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Is there a particular way that your life has followed a path of some people who went before you?

(The photo of Buddha footprints is by "Nemo's great uncle"

and is used under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License.)