So high you
cannot climb or get close to it;
raindrops scatter in the flying wind.
The gate is barred with green moss. Suddenly
forgetting thought, without attainment,
only then will you be sure
the gate has been open
all along.
the calm light from the spirit
Heaven
is in everything:
follow the light, hide in the
cloudiness and begin
in what is.
Don’t
seek fame or
Just pass this life as is, according to
circumstances. When the breath is gone, who is in
charge? After the death of the body, there is only an empty
name. When your clothes are worn, repair them over and
over; when you have no food, work to provide. How
long can a phantom-like body last? Would you
increase your ignorance for the sake
of its idle concerns?
A sage is subtle,
intuitive, penetrating, profound.
His depths are mysterious and
unfathomable.
The best one can do is
describe his appearance: the sage
is alert as a person crossing a winter stream; as
circumspect as a person with neighbors on all four sides;
as respectful as a thoughtful guest; as yielding as
melting ice; as simple as uncarved wood;
as open as a valley; as chaotic
as a muddy torrent.
Why “chaotic
as a muddy torrent”?
Because clarity is learned by
being patient in the
heart of chaos.
Tolerating
disarray, remaining at rest,
gradually one learns to allow muddy water to
settle and proper responses to reveal themselves.
Those who aspire to tao don’t long for fulfillment.
They selflessly allow tao to use and deplete
them; they calmly allow tao to renew
and complete them.
These days, Obama spends
a lot of time talking with younger people.
With them, he is an elder refuting the notion that things
have never been worse. “I say, ‘No, you know what? Civil War—really bad.
Jim Crow—tough. You know, our parents, our grandparents, our great-grandparents
went through stuff that was profoundly tougher than what we’re going through,’ ”
the former President said. “And I say that not to pull rank on them but,
rather, to pull them out of any kind of hopelessness
about the situation.”
It certainly wasn’t
fish who discovered water or
birds the air. Men built houses in part
out of embarrassment by the stars and raised
their children on trivialities because they had butchered
the god within themselves. The politician standing on
the church steps thrives within the grandeur
of this stupidity, a burnt out lamp
who never imagined
the sun.