Today
while begging,
I got caught in a shower.
For some time, I found shelter
in an old shrine. Laugh if you like at
the one jar and one bowl I own!
Humble and cleansed —
my life a broken
house.
persevere in simplicity
Do
you wish
to realize the Way?
Dissolve everything instantly,
like a drop of water
hitting a red-hot
coal.
Forget
thoughts and
feelings and ideas of self.
Remaining ordinary, foregoing airs,
persevering in simplicity for years
and decades, you enter
into the Oneness,
and it into
you.
shake, loosen, and open
Someone
who does not know
the Tigris River exists brings
the caliph who lives near the river a jar
of fresh water. The caliph accepts,
thanks him, and gives in return
a jar filled with gold
coins.
“Since this
man has come through
the desert, he should return by water.”
Taken out by another door, the man steps into
a waiting boat and sees the wide freshwater
of the Tigris. He bows his head, “What
wonderful kindness that he
took my gift.”
Every object
and being in the universe
is a jar overfilled with wisdom and
beauty, a drop of the Tigris that cannot be
contained in any skin. Every jarful spills and makes
the earth more shining, as though covered in satin.
If the man had seen even a tributary of the
great river, he would not have brought
the innocence of his
gift.
Those that
stay and live by the
Tigris grow so ecstatic that
they throw rocks at the jugs, and
the jugs become perfect. They shatter.
The pieces dance, and water…
Do you see? Neither jar nor
water nor stone,
nothing.
You knock
at the door of reality,
shake your thought-wings,
loosen your shoulders,
and open.
all beings are by nature buddha
All beings
are by nature Buddha,
as ice by nature is water. Apart
from water there is no ice;
apart from beings,
no Buddha.
allow tao to carve you into a vessel for tao
To know
the masculine and yet
cleave to the feminine is to be the
womb for the world. Being the womb for
the world, never departing from the
eternal power of tao, you
become like an infant
once again:
immortal.
To know
the bright and yet
hold to the dull is to be
an example for the world.
Being the example for the world,
not deviating from the everlasting
power of tao, you return to
the infinite once again:
limitless.
To know
honor and yet keep
to humility is to be the valley
for the world. Being the valley for
the world, rich with the primal power
of tao, you return once again to simplicity,
like uncarved wood. Allow tao to carve
you into a vessel for tao. Then you
can serve the world without
mutilating
it.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
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