Shadow Paths & Vices(Template)
Shadow Paths
A Shadow Path is a path you walk that does not or cannot provide fulfillment.
Shadow paths are destructive, damaging Body, Mind, or Spirit(BMS) of the wanderer.
A shadow path is often the pursuit of pleasure, which cannot be fulfilled because paths of pleasure lack paths to mastery, so they cannot provide fulfillment or mastery.
A shadow path can also be a path to mastery that does not resonate with the wanderer’s spirit, but may resonate for another wanderer.
The wanderer may be aware or unaware of their shadow paths.
Being on the wrong path is better than being on the path of pleasure.
Shadow paths can be unconscious and/or uncontrolled paths that does not provide fulfillment. The shadow path can be addiction, regardless of whether the wanderer is aware of their addiction.
Shadow paths leads to an undesirable future while keeping the present unfulfilling for the wanderer. Shadow paths can only lead to a lack of fulfillment. Hell.
Think about who you will become in 5, 10, or 20 years by following your shadow paths. By thinking about where the path of no path or wrong path takes you, you can see and feel the potential for wasted life, which in itself is motivating to change course. Thinking through these things helps the wanderer stay loyal to their paths. You must spend time with yourself to think through things.
Shadow paths can come in the form of nostalgia, an attempt to relive the path of the past, which is impossible because the path moves forward.
Musashi Dokkōdō Precept 6 | Do not regret what you have done
You must be aware of your shadow paths so you are aware when the shadow pulls you—so you may go another direction.
Shadow paths can come and go, but some wanderers begin walking a shadow path in their youth that takes them all the way to death.
A lifetime without fulfillment is a wasted life. This is Hell on Earth.
List your shadow paths with brutal honesty. Meditate on what you do and how you think. To hide from a shadow path is to give it more power. The light sanitizes what grows in the darkness.
Shadow Paths:
• X
• X
• X
Vices
Vices are your Play & Pleasure(P&P) that the wanderer relegates to The Inn off the path. A vice is any path of action that does not have contain mastery. Vice is often a form of consumption, as creation always requires a path to mastery.
All pleasures are vices. Wanderers must control and quarantine pleasure to off the path because pleasure cannot be mastered so it cannot provide fulfillment.
Vices can include drugs, alcohol, money, the indulgence of food, but wanderers can turn anything into a vice. Video games, social media, television, or the celebritization of others can be vices.
A vice can become a shadow path if pursued, but if it can be left at The Inn, it is respite from the difficulties of the path for the wanderer.
Indulge in your vices at The inn when you have earned them through dutifully walking your paths to mastery.
God(s) create. Live closer to God(s) by pursuing mastery.
Vices:
• X
• X
• X
If a vice is taken to the path and affects path progression, you must break the vice.
Vice Breaking
The wanderer should strongly consider taking vice breaks to ensure they do not begin to pursue their vices.
Do not use vices while on the path or you may begin to pursue them instead. The vice-path is always easier than the path of mastery, but only one fulfills.
Vice break examples:
• Last week of the month off
• Multiple days off per week
• A month or two off each year
If the wanderer cannot pursue fulfillment with a particular vice used off the path, the wanderer must eliminate the vice.