Well - I'll tell you. The thing about the Tao, and the thing about love, is that it's always inviting you away from thoughts and words into experience. The Tao that can be named is not the Tao....
The more you talk about it, the less of "it" you're actually experiencing. Jack and Ennis would have benefited from an actual spoken "I love you" not for the sake of sentiment, but to acknowledge the reality of their experience...to say it aloud and make it real. That's perhaps why Ennis says "I swear" at the end - his way of acknowldeging what he could not admit otherwise. He so completely resiisted the most powerful force at work in his life, and really at work in the world.
That of love. The Tao doesn't ever talk about love, which I think is right. Our notions of love are too degraded and mixed with desire and need to be reflective of the real thing. But fear of it keeps a man (anyone) from the natural flow of every type of energy through his life.
It is not possible to say no to love but yes to much else. The dam that is created in that refusal is insurmountable. That "no" reverberates in every aspect of life, well and truly crippling the soul who utters it. You cannot say no to love without saying no to life, without saying no to Tao. That's why Ennis's potential salvation lies in attending his daughter's wedding (in the movie) and in his dreams of Jack (in the story) - here at least is one place where's he's still able to say yes.
The reason individuals and society become so degraded when the step away from Tao is that they are running on their own limited energy, not on what's universally available. And like any closed system, that energy starts to get polluted and stagnant. Imagine a pool without a source of fresh clear water ever. And Tao - love - the generative force...is the infusion of pure cool newness that transforms.
Jack & Ennis's relationship deteriorates into so much pain because Ennis refuses to admit anything new into the relationship. He refuses to let love move through the relationship, and he refuses to be new himself. So the dam he's blocked everything with is fear. And it's the biggest killer for most of us. The Tao isn't about love or not love, accepting or refusing, embracing or rejecting. It's about living in the Center of what is. And at the center of the human soul is ther perfect vessel for love.
And the spiritual practice is staying at that Center. Not weighing or judging or wondering or analyzing. Simply acknowledging and staying there. And that's what Ennis does for just a second. He runs to the Center and says yes. And when we see that (second tent scene, reunion scene), it's glorious. But then he runs away again and again and again. And Jack gives up running after him eventually, too tired to be pulled so far away from the center, so far away from love.
And even when Ennis does run to the Center, it is not with his whole heart. He does it piecemeal. So he's not able to act with complete love which means honesty, clarity, integrity remain elusive for him. For Ennis, love is a threat because he's made his Center one of material safety and not reality. He has substituted a limited idea of "getting by" with the true Center of himself...of the universe.
And that's why we keep rooting for him - that's what we keep wanting - for him to step fully into the river of life and let it wash him clean and enliven all that's dead in him. Because we've done, to one degree or another, the same thing he has. His journey is ours...back to the Center.
