Shed Both Shores as a Snake Sheds Its Old Skin
As a snake sheds its worn-out skin, so the seeker casts off both this shore and the far shore.
Am I still wearing an old shell I have outgrown, as if it were still me?
📝Reflection
A snake, as it grows, sheds its worn skin. If it cannot, it dies. The old shell once protected it, but now becomes a prison that constricts it. This verse takes that shedding as an image of practice. I feel this simile fits all growth in life. We too have old shells that once protected us — childhood defenses, former titles, the self-definitions left by past loves. They were once needed. But as we grow, the shell becomes too small. The trouble is that we can scarcely shed the shrunken shell — out of habit, out of fear. More striking still is "casts off both shores." Be bound neither to this shore (who I am now) nor to the far shore (the ideal I wish to be). Clinging lies not only in the old but in impatience for the new. Shed both, and one flows on lightly.
🌱Apply It Today
Recall one old self-definition that constricts you today — "I am the kind of person who ___" — and ask whether that shell still fits. An outgrown shell may be shed.
This verse is read as universal humanistic wisdom, not religion — no faith is promoted, and the reflection is 100% original ONGO content.
