The forger of swords for the Minister of War
had reached the age of eighty,
and had not lost a hair’s-breadth of his ability.

The Minister said to him,
‘You are indeed skillful, Sir.
Have you any method that makes you so?’

The man said,
‘Your servant has (always) kept to his work.
When I was twenty, I was fond of forging swords.
I looked at nothing else. I paid no attention to anything but swords.
By my constant practice of it,
I came to be able to do the work
without any thought of what I was doing.

By length of time one acquires ability at any art;
and how much more one who is ever at work on it!
What is there which does not depend on this, and succeed by it?’

CODA

‘The Tao cannot be heard;
what can be heard is not It.
The Tao cannot be seen;
what can be seen is not It.
The Tao cannot be expressed in words;
what can be expressed in words is not It.

Do we know the Formless which gives form to form?
In the same way the Tao does not admit of being named.’

Zhuangzi by Zhuang Zhou, trans. By James Legge

I was present at a Judy Collins concert last night.  She is eighty-four years old.  She carried herself with poise.  A consummate performer, she delivered songs and stories with heart.  I took note of tales of her upbringing, mentioning her affection for her dad, his embrace of music as a singer, a song writer, and the whimsy that infused her family activities.  Her stories included Leonard Cohen, Graham Nash, Art Garfunkel, and John Denver.

The concert was the gift of an entire life, a form of experiences infinitely rich, and precious.  Something which I cannot name.

The video will be worth five minutes of your time.