The best effort
one can make is the
gentlest effort: wei wu wei.
Quietly, persistently direct the
mind toward emptiness. When
all thoughts and ideas have
dissipated, then make no
further effort. Just
breathe.
This is the only
practice required of a
human, the best one, the one
that perfectly purifies
our lives.
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Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a
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Heaven is in everything: follow the light, hide in the cloudiness and begin in what is. Don’t seek fame or Just pass this life as is, according to circumstances. When the breath is gone, who is in charge? After the death of the body, there is only an empty name. When your clothes are worn, repair them over and over; when you have no food, work to provide. How long can a phantom-like body last? Would you increase your ignorance for the sake of its idle concerns? A sage is subtle, intuitive, penetrating, profound. His depths are mysterious and unfathomable. The best one can do is describe his appearance: the sage is alert as a person crossing a winter stream; as circumspect as a person with neighbors on all four sides; as respectful as a thoughtful guest; as yielding as melting ice; as simple as uncarved wood; as open as a valley; as chaotic as a muddy torrent. Why “chaotic as a muddy torrent”? Because clarity is learned by being patient in the heart of chaos. Tolerating disarray, remaining at rest, gradually one learns to allow muddy water to settle and proper responses to reveal themselves. Those who aspire to tao don’t long for fulfillment. They selflessly allow tao to use and deplete them; they calmly allow tao to renew and complete them. These days, Obama spends a lot of time talking with younger people. With them, he is an elder refuting the notion that things have never been worse. “I say, ‘No, you know what? Civil War—really bad. Jim Crow—tough. You know, our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents went through stuff that was profoundly tougher than what we’re going through,’ ” the former President said. “And I say that not to pull rank on them but, rather, to pull them out of any kind of hopelessness about the situation.” It certainly wasn’t fish who discovered water or birds the air. Men built houses in part out of embarrassment by the stars and raised their children on trivialities because they had butchered the god within themselves. The politician standing on the church steps thrives within the grandeur of this stupidity, a burnt out lamp who never imagined the sun.
heaven is in everything
how long can a phantom-like body last?
patience in the heart of chaos
men raise children on trivialities
