The notion of
enlightenment means, “not bound”.
Not bound to what? Not bound to one’s own
mind in ordinary ways; not bound in confusion
to all the suffering that one’s mind
has produced and is
experiencing.
The notion of
enlightenment means, “not bound”.
Not bound to what? Not bound to one’s own
mind in ordinary ways; not bound in confusion
to all the suffering that one’s mind
has produced and is
experiencing.
Keep your heart clear and
transparent and you will never be bound.
A single disturbed thought, though, creates ten thousand
distractions. Let myriad things captivate you and you’ll
go further and further astray. How painful to
see people all wrapped up in
themselves.
Whatever state you’re in,
remember you are inside the presence.
Out looking for pleasure, there especially —
I have found no delight better than the mix of touch
with love. That taste is the sweetest. When you are tranced
in that, recall who gave you these pleasurable forms and
inclinations. Even when having a brain seizure,
remember how earthquake energy pries
apart mountains and zigzags a stone
wall. Let that core-energy break
your convulsion.
When you’re afraid
of a certain man in power, of some
authority binding you, in these anxieties,
as well as in prostration prayer,
taste the presence.
Mountains,
a moment’s earth-waves
rising and hollowing; the earth
too’s an ephemerid; the stars— short-lived
as grass the stars quicken in the nebula and dry
in their summer, they spiral blind up space, scattered
black seeds of a future; nothing lives long, the whole sky’s
recurrences tick the seconds of the hours of the ages of the gulf
before birth, and the gulf after death is like dated: to labor eighty
years in a notch of eternity is nothing too tiresome, enormous repose
after, enormous repose before, the flash of activity. Surely you never
have dreamed the incredible depths were prologue and epilogue
merely to the surface play in the sun, the instant of life, what is
called life? I fancy that silence is the thing, this noise a found
word for it; interjection, a jump of the breath at that silence;
stars burn, grass grows, men breathe: as a man finding
treasure says ‘Ah!’ but the treasure’s the essence;
before the man spoke it was there, and
after he has spoken he gathers it,
inexhaustible treasure.
Nonbeing gives
birth to the oneness.
The oneness gives birth to yin and
yang. Yin and yang give birth to heaven,
earth, and beings. Heaven, earth, and
beings give birth to everything
in existence.
Therefore everything
in existence carries within it both
yin and yang, and attains its harmony by
blending together these two
vital breaths.
Ordinary people
hate nothing more than to be
powerless, small, and unworthy.
Yet this is how superior people
describe themselves.
Gain is loss.
Loss is gain.
I repeat what others have said:
The strong and violent don’t die natural deaths.
This is the very essence of my teaching.
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