The Path

The spiritual path is often spoken of as a journey — a progression from ignorance to wisdom, from bondage to liberation. Yet upon closer examination, this metaphor reveals both its usefulness and its limitations.

In relative terms, the path provides structure: stages of practice, ethical guidelines, meditative techniques, and philosophical teachings. These serve as skillful means to orient the seeker, to stabilise attention, and to cultivate insight. The path unfolds as layers of conditioning are revealed and released.

However, from the perspective of ultimate truth, the path has no distance. There is no separate destination to reach, because that which is sought — the unconditioned — is already fully present. What appears as a journey is the gradual recognition of what has always been here, obscured by mistaken identity and habitual grasping.

Thus, the path is both real and illusory. It is necessary as long as confusion persists, yet ultimately dissolves as insight matures. The teachings point not to something to achieve, but to the removal of that which obstructs seeing. In this sense, the path is not about becoming, but about undoing.

When all striving ceases, the simplicity of being remains — not as an attainment, but as the groundless ground of what has always been. The path vanishes, but presence abides.

“There is no path; the path is made by walking.”
— Zen Saying