How much freedom
is gained if a man ignores what
his neighbor said or did or intended
and considers only what he himself is doing
and how to make his actions just and right, the
kind of things a good man would do! Don’t let
your attention be caught by the darkness
of others’ movements; just run straight
on the line, with no ungainly
movements.
A
good runner
leaves no tracks;
a good speaker makes no slips;
a good planner doesn’t have to scheme.
The best lock has no bolt, and no
one can open it. The best knot
uses no rope, and no
one can untie
it.
Thus
the master is always
good at saving people, and
doesn’t abandon anyone; always good
at conserving things, and doesn’t
waste anything. This is known
as “Following the
light.”
What is a good woman but a bad man’s teacher?
What is a bad man but a good woman’s charge?
It
doesn’t matter how
smart you are if you don’t
have the sense to honor your teachers
and cherish your responsibilities.
This is an essential
teaching of
tao.
from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,
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You must keep this
mind balanced and equanimous,
without deluded ideas of self and others,
without arbitrary loves and hates, without grasping
or rejecting, without notions of gain and loss.
Go on gradually nurturing this for
a long time, perhaps twenty
or thirty years.
Whether you encounter
favorable or adverse conditions,
do not retreat or regress — then when you
come to the juncture between life and death,
you will naturally be set free and be not afraid.
As the saying goes, “Truth requires sudden
awakening, but the phenomenal
level calls for gradual
cultivation.”
Once
you’ve begun
to understand the Way,
concentrate upon it without
pause. This is the sunlight
that matures the fruit of
your realization.
Maintaining
your insight through
whatever comes, you make
a Oneness of the world, and
conditions such as “good”
and “bad” drop
away.
You
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Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a
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You
don’t have to
straighten anything out
in your mind. You only have
to set it down if it
isn’t good.
Your
enlightenment is
fully present at every moment
of your life. If you perceive something
between you and that, nothing more
need be done other than
to let go of it upon
observing
it.
You
can now buy
Wei wu Wei Ching as part of a
five-app bundle of Taoist classics
for iPhone or iPad for less than
the cost of one hardcover
book.
