"There are many Paths you can take, but none of them will lead to liberation if you are wearing the wrong shoes”. – Doka Sensei
Interpretation:
There are many different Paths to liberation but even if we choose the one that is right for us, we will most likely not get very far if we copy the way others “walk” the same Path ("if we wear the wrong shoes" or in other words, if we blindly imitate how others approach practice, service, relationships, how quickly they progress or what level of discipline they maintain).
If we wear the "wrong shoes", the Path no longer leads us home. Instead, it becomes a stage on which we play a role that was not written for us, and therefore our performance becomes inadequate too. In order for the Path to break free from the stage, we must approach it in an authentic way (we must "wear our own shoes even if they are uncomfortable", or in other words, we must surrender to our own life story, karma, abilities, physical form, etc. ).
But, surrendering does not mean giving up, being lazy or falling into the depths of self-pity. These are just traps of our Ego that we can avoid through self-knowledge attained through self-assessment, alertness and conscious presence.
This is especially important at the beginning of our journey, because at that very moment, it is not always clear what Path lies ahead - we know neither its difficulty nor its duration.
However, the knowledge we can access from the very beginning is the knowledge of "what kind of feet we have" (in other words, what are our strengths and weaknesses). This knowledge helps us to align the Path, approach to it and the state we are in, - " matching our own shoes to the Path and the Path to our own shoes".
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