she who is filled with goodness

innocence

 

She

who is filled with

goodness is like a newborn child:

wasps and snakes will not bite it, fierce

beasts will not attack it, birds of

prey will not pounce

on it.

 

Its

bones are soft

and its muscles weak,

but its grip is firm. It hasn’t yet

known the union of male and female,

yet its organ stirs with vitality.

It can howl all day without

becoming hoarse,

so perfect is its

harmony.

 

To

know harmony is to

know the eternal.  To know

the eternal is to be

inspired.

 

Prolonging

life is not harmonious.

Coercing the breath is unnatural.

Things which are overdeveloped must

decay.  All this is contrary to Tao,

and whatever is contrary

to Tao soon ceases

to be.

 

from The Tao te Ching of Lao Tzu,

Chapter 55

 

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gradual cultivation

lori andrews

 

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.”

 

Yuanwu

zen letters