a truly good person

A truly

good person doesn’t

dwell on her goodness.

Thus she can be good.

A person of false goodness

never forgets her goodness.

Thus her goodness is

always false.

A truly

good person does nothing,

yet nothing remains undone.

A person of false goodness is forever

doing, yet everything remains

forever undone.

Those who

are interested in service

act without motive. Those who are

interested in righteousness act with

motives of all sorts. Those who are

interested in propriety act, and

receiving no response, they

roll up their sleeves

and use force.

When

Tao is lost,

goodness appears.

When goodness is lost,

philanthropy appears.

When philanthropy is lost,

justice appears.

When justice is lost,

only etiquette

is left.

Etiquette

is the faintest husk

of real loyalty and faith,

and it is the beginning of confusion.

Knowledge of the future is only

a blossom of Tao; to become

preoccupied with it

is folly.

Thus the

sage sets her sights

on the substance and not the

surface, on the fruit and not the

flower. Leaving the one,

she gains the

other.

from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 38

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the truth that never comes from reading words

mark steinmetz

The way is difficult

and very intricate. Lalla discarded her

books that told about it, and through meditation

saw the truth that never comes to anyone

from reading words.

Lalla

naked song

a time for disengagement and retreat

just be still

This is a time for

disengagement and retreat.

In stillness you are out

of the reach of

danger.

It is inherent in the design of life that forces of darkness and disruption come into prominence from time to time. This hexagram indicates that this is such a time and advises you to respond by quietly retreating. To struggle or resist in anger now is to add fuel to the fire of negativity which threatens to consume you.

The superior person accepts that there is a natural ebb and flow between the forces of light and dark in the world. Wisdom lies not in resisting these movements but in responding to them appropriately. Just as a plant which sprouts in the dead of winter is doomed, and one which sprouts in spring flourishes, so it is with us. Success and prosperity accrue to those who advance in times of light and retreat in times of darkness. To retreat now is to benefit, in the end, from the changing tides.

Retreat is not the same thing as surrender, capitulation, or abandonment, which are desperate and unsatisfying measures. Neither is it characterized by a hardening into angry or punitive emotions. It is instead an acceptance and a choice: we calmly accept that the energies of the moment are against us, and we wisely choose to withdraw into the safety of stillness. In this dignified and balanced manner we protect ourselves from negative influences and arrive rested in a more beneficial hour.

from The I Ching, or Book of Changes

Hexagram 33, Tun / Retreat

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buddha has gotten into your nostrils

here is what a buddha is

Master Ciming said to an assembly, “The body of reality is formless; it manifests forms in response to beings.”

(Dahui holds up his staff.) This is a staff — what is the reality body? Leaving this complication aside, the communal hall and Buddha shrine have gotten into your nostrils, the waters of the four great oceans are on your heads, the dragon kings are under your fingernails — do you feel them?

If you feel them, you go three thousand by day, eight hundred by night, smoke rising under your feet, fire rising on your heads. If you don’t know, eat when hungry, sleep when tired.

(Dahui planted his staff once.)

Dahui