Raven 42: Outside History

We last heard from Badger 18 episodes ago (HERE). As we learned then, his family responsibilities prevent him from regular attendance at the circle. History -- your personal history, your family's history, your culture's historical background, the evolutionary history of your kind and of all kinds, the universe's history -- is the accumulation of moss on a stone. When the storm waters of transformation have washed away the accumulated moss of your delusions and the clean rock underneath is exposed to the world, does this moss-less condition represent something better? Self-improvement is not the same thing as self-realization -- but what exactly is the difference?

Case

Badger had been busy again, looking after his family. One evening after his return, he asked, "Is there really something to understand beyond the way to be a better person?"
Raven said, "Outside history."
Badger asked, "In a vacuum?"
Raven said, "Where the freshet washed away the moss."

Verse

The way to be a better person: utterly inscrutable.
But stand under the history that is outside you --
The co-arising with which you are interdependent.
And stand under what is outside of history --
The undying, unborn, unconditioned,
about which even these negations mislead.
See what happens.

Case by Robert Aitken; introduction and verse by Meredith Garmon

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