There is no escape.

You can’t be a vagabond and an artist

and still be a solid citizen, a wholesome, upstanding man.

You want to get drunk, so you have to accept the hangover.

You say yes to the sunlight and pure fantasies, so you

have to say yes to the filth and the nausea.

Everything is within you, gold and mud,

happiness and pain, the laughter

of childhood and the

apprehension

of death.

 

Say yes

to everything, shirk

nothing. Don’t try to lie to yourself.

You are not a solid citizen. You are not a Greek.

You are not harmonious, or the master of yourself.

You are a bird in the storm. Let

it storm! Let it drive

you!

 

Herman Hesse

 

 

Thus

shall ye think

of all this fleeting world:

a star at dawn, a bubble in a stream;

a flash of lightning in a summer

cloud, a flickering lamp,

a phantom, and a

dream.

 

Prajnaparamita 

 

 

Whip

and tether, self

and bull, every thing

is no thing. The clear blue

sky is unmarked by a message.

Could a snowflake persist

in a flaming fire? This

is the place of

masters.

 

Kuoan Shihyuan

 

 

Those who

awaken never rest in one place.

Like swans, they rise and leave the lake.

On the air they rise and fly an invisible course.

Their food is knowledge. They live on

emptiness. They have seen how

to break free. Who can

follow them?

 

Gautama Buddha

 

If you go

searching for the Great Creator,

you will come back empty-handed.

The source of the universe is ultimately

unknowable, a great invisible river

flowing forever through a vast

and fertile valley. Silent and

uncreated, it creates

all things.

 

All things

are brought forth from  the

 subtle realm into the manifest world

by the mystical intercourse of yin and yang.

The dynamic river yang pushes forward,

the still valley yin is receptive, and

through their integration things

come into existence. This is

known as the Great

Tai Chi.

 

Tai chi

is the integral truth

of the universe. Everything is

a tai chi: your body, the cosmic body,

form, appearance, wisdom, energy, the unions

of people, the dispersal of time and places.

Each brings itself into existence through

the integration of yin and yang,

maintains itself, and disperses

itself without the direction

of any creator.

 

Your creation,

your self-transformation, the

accumulation of energy and wisdom,

the decline and cessation of your body:

all these take place by themselves

within the subtle operation

of the universe.

 

Therefore

agitated effort is

not necessary. Just be

aware of the Great

Tai Chi.

 

Hua hu Ching, Chapter 39

 

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