Master no-mind,
and you live in perfect accord
with all things.
The ancients were
those who gave up all
learning and mastered
the wu wei idleness
of tao.
Frankly speaking,
you simply must manage
to keep concentrating even in the midst
of clamor and tumult, acting as though there were not
a single thing happening, penetrating all the way through from
the heights to the depths. You must become perfectly complete,
without any shapes or forms at all, without wasting effort,
yet not inhibited from acting. Whether you speak
or stay silent, whether you get up
or lie down, it is never
anyone else.
Govern a nation
by following nature.
Fight a war with unexpected
moves. Win the world by
letting go.
How do I know this?
From seeing these things:
The more prohibitions there
are, the poorer people
become.
The more
weapons there are,
the darker things
become.
The more cunning
and cleverness there is,
the crazier things
become.
The more laws there are,
the greater the number
of scoundrels.
Therefore the sage says:
I take no action, and people transform
themselves. I love tranquility, and people
naturally do what is right. I don’t interfere,
and people prosper on their own. I have
no desires, and people return
to simplicity.
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Do not
do anything (good or bad)
and do not even do this not-doing;
then straightaway one reaches that place where
there is no concern for external affairs, that
vast and peaceful place where there
are absolutely no obstructing
thoughts.
There,
all thoughts of the past
are extinguished, all thoughts of
the future do not arise, and
all present thoughts
are void.
Nevertheless,
this void-ness is also not
to be maintained. This non-maintenance
(of the void) is also to be forgotten, and this forgetting
is also not to be legitimized; further, free yourself from this
non-legitimizing. At the time when even the idea of
getting free is not preserved, only the alert
yet calm light from the spirit will
appear prominently before
oneself.