There’s a passage in A Trackless Path 1 that I keep returning to. Ken talks about “the price” of practice—not as something heroic, but as the ordinary, human cost of letting illusions fall apart. Certainties dissolve, familiar motivations lose their grip, and the usual strategies for holding a self together stop working. Practice doesn’t polish us; it undoes us.
I appreciate the way Ken describes awakening without framing it as an achievement. Words like peace, presence, or simplicity aren’t goals. They’re the textures or flavours of experience when the tension of duality relaxes and the machinery of “someone” starts to unwind.
This may be why Buddhism felt like home from the beginning. There was a kind of care in not letting anything—even open, clear, awareness—harden into an anchor. It felt unsettling yet strangely honest. Ken’s sensibility reflects that: a willingness to lose identity and certainty, to walk through unknowing, to let curiosity undo the familiar life. He quotes Eliot: “A moment of complete simplicity which costs not less than everything.”
From A Trackless Path 1-7
Julia: Could you talk a little bit about the price in worldly terms of doing this. Because you’ve talked about the aloneness of finding your own path. But you haven’t talked about the consequences of it for the life of work and relationships which can change very dramatically as a result.
Ken: Well. I think one has to talk about both the price and the rewards. You’ve heard me tell this one before.
A group of people came to a Sufi and said we’d like to study with you. And he said, “Are you willing to give up pride and be humble?” And they said, “Yes!” “Are you willing to experience difficulty and not seek comfort?” And they said, “Yes!” And he asked them. “Are you willing to serve and not lead?” They said, “Yes!” He said, “Very well. Next Tuesday I’m meeting with a group of students who studied with me for three years. Please come.” He told them where to come.
That Tuesday evening this group of people came in and there was a group of students sitting there. And the Sufi said, “Sit over here.”
And he turned to his students, the ones who had been studying with him for three years. And said, “How many of you would rather be proud than humble?” And they all stood up. “How many of you would rather have comfort than difficulty?” And they all stood up. “How many of you would rather lead than serve?” And they all stood up.
So he turned to this new group and said, “So you see that the results of studying with me will be that you are worse than you are now. Please think about this. And we can talk again.”
When we set out on such a path, we have no idea where it will lead. I remember a meeting I had with Julia and a couple of other women—Martha and Michelle—in my old office. And I think it was Michelle said, “And what do you do?” And Julia said, “I’m not working right now.” And Martha said, “Yeah, I’m working.” And Michelle just looked at her and said, “Oh, you haven’t been studying very long with Ken yet. Another couple of years and you’ll be unemployed.” You remember that? [Laughter]
Julia: I remember that.
Ken: And Martha went [makes gasping sound]. Couple of years later she was unemployed. So because as one begins to explore this curiosity that we have about this experience we call life, all kinds of things are called into question. Actually, everything is called into question! [Laughter]
Towards the end of Four Quartets T.S. Eliot writes,
"A moment of complete simplicity which costs not less than everything."
So things are called into question. And this starts actually quite early. Many of you have heard me talk about the eight worldly concerns: happiness and unhappiness, gain and loss, fame and obscurity, respect and disdain. These are what the conventional life is based on. We seek happiness, wealth, gain, a certain amount of fame or renown, certainly respect. Try to avoid the others. And if we turn our back on that, everybody thinks we’re crazy. But you may very well find that as these things come into question or as you come to certain understandings that what is meaningful to everybody else has little meaning maybe even no meaning to you.
And what I often find is how extraordinarily hard some people become around money. That when the topic of money comes in this perfectly reasonable, nice person becomes somebody else. That’s what’s really important in their lives. And they will sacrifice friendships and things for that. Which is completely bizarre as far as I’m concerned because money is always replaceable. Friendships aren’t.
So, we begin to move. And this changes our relationships with people. And we’ve already talked in other evenings about how when things change inside we begin to relate to people differently. And for some people, they can’t accept the change in relationship and those relationships fall away. And they’re replaced by other relationships. Maybe not as many of them but they are often replaced by other relationships. And they’re different in quality and tone and dynamic.
But through this process there can be a consistent sense of loss. I think this is what Julia was referring to in terms of price. Is that right?
Julia: Yes.
Ken: And it can do what I was talking about in relationship with betrayal. It’s the grief we experience when we lose an illusion. You know, we live that and it was so fine. But now we see it’s not like that and there’s grief in that. There’s a process of separation which is what grief is about.
But I think it’s only fair to say that those prices are half of it. The other half of it is that we move into a more complete relationship with this experience we call life. And whether you call it a sense of wholeness or purpose or direction or understanding or congruence—that’s also part of the picture. It’s not necessarily a nice neat process—if you let this go this comes. It’s often if you let this go you wander around for a long time wondering what the hell is going on. And then you begin, “Oh, this is actually what I was looking for. I just didn’t recognize it.”
But one has to be willing to accept and live in this kind of uncertainty and change and, in many cases, unknowing. Rilke, in Letters to a Young Poet says,
“Only be a poet if you have to be a poet. If you have any other choice in your life, take it.”
Somebody I was meeting with quite recently said the same thing about photography to me. It applies to a lot of areas. And basically I say the same thing to people, “Only travel this path if you have to.”
There’s a teacher in Toronto who’s quite old now, Lama Karma Thinley, who’s always been a bit quirky. Which is one of the things I liked about him. When he first came to Toronto which was back in the ’70s, people would go to India and they would come back full of enthusiasm saying I took refuge with so and so, etc. And Lama Karma Thinley would go, “Oh. I’m so sorry!” [Laughter] At first it was just like, “What?” And Lama Karma Thinley would, “Maybe it’s not too late.” And of course the people were just like “What!” So, does this speak to what you were—
Julia: So, perhaps better not to start probably—
Ken: It’s a Tibetan expression, you know, “Perhaps better not to start. Once started, better to finish.” Well, things don’t necessarily work out on the path. And I know because I’ve seen any number of people really damaged, quite a few corpses, etc. Many colleagues for whom that’s been the case.
At the same time, if you have this curiosity and you pursue it, it’s unlikely whatever happens that you’ll regret it. The opposite is not true. And, as I’ve said, it’s very much about coming to terms with our experience. And we can put that in all kinds of language. For some people, they seek freedom. For some people, awakening. For some people, presence. For some people, knowing of some form. Some people, peace.
There are other words that are used to describe it. One I’m thinking of is union. But that’s a metaphor. It’s a metaphor to describe a certain experience. What we are looking for is a way of experiencing our lives which fundamentally leaves us at peace.
Now a lot of colleagues of mine really take issue with me for making that statement. But for some of you whom I know through our conversations have experienced presence without any sense of subject or object. There is in that experience a complete peace. You are free of the tension of duality. And that’s why I use that terminology. It’s actually not about looking for meaning or purpose because those are relatively subtle forms of identity.
I go back to something that I mentioned at the beginning of the retreat. I’ve mentioned many times because I find this wording very helpful. That curiosity that I’ve been speaking about this evening often is experienced as a small, stammering voice that is asking somewhat inconvenient questions. And if you choose this path then you learn to listen deeply so you can hear that voice. And that’s no simple matter.