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.
Between their births
and their deaths, three out of ten
are attached to life, three out of ten are
attached to death, three out of ten are just
idly passing through. Only one knows
how to die and stay dead and
still go on living.
That one
hasn’t any ambitions,
hasn’t any ideas, makes no plans.
From this mysterious place of not-knowing
and non-doing he gives birth to whatever is needed
in the moment. Because he is constantly filling his being
with nonbeing, he can travel the wilds without
worrying about tigers or wild buffalo,
or he can cross a battlefield
without armor or
weapon.
No tiger can claw him.
No buffalo can gore him.
No weapon can pierce him.
Why is this so?
Because he has died, there
isn’t any more room for
death in him.
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
Wei wu Wei Ching, Hua hu Ching, and
Art of War for iPad/Phone, Kindle,
You
can now buy
Tao te Ching as part of a
five-app bundle of Taoist classics
for iPhone or iPad for less than
the cost of one hardcover
book.
Let there be small
countries with few people.
Let the people have no use for
complicated machinery. Let them be
mindful of death so that they
don’t move too far from
their birthplaces.
If there be boats and carriages,
let there be nowhere to take them to.
If there are weapons, let there
be no occasion to display them.
Let the people’s
responsibilities be few enough
that they may remember them
by knotting a string.
Let them
enjoy their food,
be content with their clothes,
be satisfied with their homes,
and take pleasure in
their customs.
Though
the next country
may be close enough
to hear the barking of its dogs
and the crowing of its roosters,
let the people grow old and
die without feeling
compelled to
visit it.
ebooks & apps of the Tao the Ching, I Ching,
Wei wu Wei Ching, Hua hu Ching, and
Art of War for iPad/Phone, Kindle,
☯️
You
can now buy
Tao te Ching as part of a
five-app bundle of Taoist classics
for iPhone or iPad for less than
the cost of one hardcover
book.
Tao is beyond words
and beyond understanding.
Words may be used to speak of
it, but they cannot
contain it.
Tao existed before
words and names, before heaven and earth,
before the ten thousand things. It is the unlimited
father and mother of all limited things. Therefore, to see
beyond all boundaries to the subtle heart of things,
dispense with names, with concepts,
with expectations and ambitions
and differences.
Tao and its many manifestations
arise from the same source: subtle wonder
within mysterious darkness. This
is the beginning of all
understanding.
🦋
This reality
cannot be covered by the skies
or held up by the earth. Space cannot contain it.
It abides within all sentient beings and is the support
on which all of them rest. It has always been
clean and naked. There is nowhere
it does not pervade.
🐞
People’s intellect and knowledge are like the light of a lamp. If that light is mistakenly used outside, in a contentious and aggressive manner, aiming for name and gain, scheming and conniving day and night, thinking a thousand thoughts, imagining ten thousand imaginings, chasing artificial objects and losing the original source, light on the outside but dark inside, this will go on until the body is injured and life is lost.
If people give up artificiality and return to the real, dismiss intellectuality and cleverness, consider essential life the one matter of importance, practice inner awareness, refine the self and master the mind, observe all things with detachment so all that exists is empty of absoluteness, are not moved by external things and are not influenced by sensory experiences, being light inside and dark outside, they can thereby aspire to wisdom and become enlightened.
Light that does not dazzle progresses to lofty illumination; therefore a classic says, “The great sage appears ignorant, the great adept seems inept.”
