This world
is an open sky and also a dustbin,
giving life to some and death to others;
the outcomes are not controlled
by this world.
Press
your finger into the world
and put it to your nose. You may smell
sweetness, or you may smell dung.
Discernment is possible in
these matters.
True hearts
stay awake if love is possible. The
others have no need for beauty, nor hope of
it. If you are holding gold in your hand,
don’t imagine ways to turn it
into mud.
postscript, 2 July:
The little things?
The little moments?
They aren’t little.
Everything passes,
nothing remains. Understand
this, loosen your grip,
and find serenity.
For the
awakening of the heart,
conditions are always
good enough.
The
origin and mother
of everything in the world is Tao.
Know the mother and you can know
the children. Having known the children,
return to their source and hold on to her.
Abiding by the mother, you are free
from danger, even when
your body
dies.
Don’t live
for your senses.
Close your mouth, close
all the body’s openings, reside
in the original unity. In this
way you can pass your
life in peace and
contentment.
Open
your mouth,
increase your activities,
start making distinctions between
things, and you’ll toil
forever without
hope.
See the subtle and be illuminated.
Abide in gentleness and be strong.
Use your light and return to insight.
Don’t
expose yourself
to trouble. This is
following
Tao.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
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book.
Rumi
advised me to keep my spirit
up in the branches of a tree and not
peek out too far, so I keep mine in the very tall
willows along the irrigation ditch out back,
a safe place to remain unspoiled by
the filthy culture of greed
and murder of the
spirit.
People
forget their spirits
easily suffocate so they must
keep them far up in tree branches where
they can be summoned any moment. It’s better
if you’re outside as it’s hard for spirits to get into houses
or buildings or airplanes. In New York City I used to reach
my spirit in front of the gorilla cage in the children’s zoo
in Central Park. It wouldn’t come in the Carlyle Hotel,
which was too expensive for its taste. In Chicago
it won’t come in the Drake, though I can see it
out the window, hovering over the surface
of Lake Michigan. The spirit above
anything else is attracted
to humility. If I slept in
the streets it would
be under the
cardboard
with
me.
Haven’t you
read the ancient worthy’s saying?
“The white clouds are clear and still, and the rivers
flow into the blue sea. The myriad things are
originally peaceful, but people
make trouble for
themselves.”
After all,
this statement is completely
accurate and true. If you know what it means
as soon as you hear it mentioned, you can use it to pass
through birth and death to freedom and no longer be obstructed
by the psycho-physical nexus. You will be like a bird getting
out of a cage — independent and free. With a single
stroke you put a stop to all other actions and
talk, and you no longer fall into
secondary views.