The
non-action of the
wise person is not inaction.
It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything.
The sage is quiet because she is not moved, not because she
wills to be quiet. Her quietness is the mirror of heaven and earth,
the glass of everything. Emptiness, stillness, tranquility,
traceless, silence, non-action: this is the level of
heaven and earth. This is the
perfect Tao.
neutrino associated with distant blazar jet
the
deeper the mystery, the
darker the night, the stronger
the gravitational pull,
the greater the
light
The
best leader is one
whose existence is barely known.
Next best is one who is loved and praised.
After that, one who is feared. Worst
of all is a leader who is
despised.
If you
fail to trust people,
you won’t inspire their trust.
Therefore, guide others by quietly
relying on Tao. Then, when the
work is done, the people can
say, “We did this
ourselves.”
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
Hua hu Ching, and Art of War for
You
can now buy
Tao te Ching as part of a
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book.
Thirty spokes
meet at a hollowed-out hub;
the wheel won’t work without its hole.
A vessel is moulded from solid clay; its inner
emptiness makes it useful. To make a room, you
have to cut doors and windows; without
openings, a place isn’t livable.
To make use of what is here,
you must make use of
what is not.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
Hua hu Ching, and Art of War for
You
can now buy
Tao te Ching as part of a
five-app bundle of Taoist classics
for iPhone or iPad for less than
the cost of one hardcover
book.
And
it seems to me
that life, this brief life,
is nothing other than this:
the incessant cry of these emotions
that drive us, that we sometimes attempt
to channel in the name of a god, a political faith,
in a ritual that reassures us that, fundamentally,
everything is in order, in a great and boundless
love — and the cry is beautiful. Sometimes
it is a cry of pain. Sometimes
it is a song.
And song,
as Augustine observed,
is the awareness of time. It is time.
It is the hymn of the Vedas that is itself the
flowering of time. In the Benedictus of Beethoven’s
Missa Solemnis, the song of the violin is pure
beauty, pure desperation, pure joy. We are
suspended, holding our breath, feeling
mysteriously that this must be source
of meaning. That this is the
source of time.
Then the
song fades and ceases.
“The silver thread is broken,
the golden bowl is shattered, the amphora
at fountain breaks, the bucket falls into the well,
the earth returns to dust.” And it is fine like
this. We can close our eyes, rest. This all
seems fair and beautiful to me.
This is time.