Yungjiang implored, “It has been difficult to meet with you. O Heaven! I ask for one more word.”

“Ah, your mind needs to be fortified.
Do nothing
and things will be transformed by themselves.
Be indifferent
to your body, dismiss your hearing and sight,
And forget the external world.

Be one with the ultimate origin of all things.
Let go of your mind, free your spirit,
Be still as if you had no soul.

All living things return to their root.
All return to the root without knowing why.
All are in the shadow of darkness
without ever leaving it.
If they knew, they would leave it.
Do not ask its name, do not probe its nature
Let all things come to life from themselves.

Zhuangzi, trans. by Hyun Hochmann and Yang Guorong, Letting Be and Letting Stand

Last night I had good fortune to meet with old friends via zoom. While physically situated in different locations the tech of the internet provided images and the audio of our words, a meeting of minds. Seven individuals, a history of many similar meetings of minds to consider hundreds of essays, topics of philosophical interest. It would be understatement to say that we “get” one another. That doesn’t mean that seven minds always agree. We all agree, “agreement” is beside the point.

The lines offered here are a glimpse into an encounter between Yunjiang and Hongmeng, two well traveled, broadly experienced followers of the Way in ancient China. Yunjiang uses the honorific “O Heaven” to request Hongmeng’s attention. This meeting of minds is with shared history, with common vocabulary, both with a singular intention to entertain the truth of the Tao… Is there anything more rare than encounter with an old friend, someone who “gets” you, who tunes into a similar playlist, who will mirror your spirit back to you?

I suppose nothing is more difficult for a 21st century American to hear: You must do nothing. It takes a fortified mind indeed, to do nothing. That is, to allow the arc of inscribed logic of things to run its course, which it surely will if I do nothing.

Furthermore to hear that sense experience is not a key either, that the ingress of “world” via my senses is irrelevant as well to the quest. I inwardly reflect, – was my visit to France and to Paris the cornerstone for what I seek to understand? As rich and fascinating as was the Louvre, the experience of choral music in the St. Marie du Mont church in Normandy, – not that either. Put those memories aside advises the old friend. Forget/lay aside the external world, as that’s only distraction.

All things (the external world) have a unitary and cosmic origin.

Close in with that, and calm yourself…

WTF.

All, everyone, you and I are one heartbeat away from where we came from! So is “that” my shadow?

Wait, wait, – but you must not ask “why.”

Do not speculate, or imagine to yourself!

Because only the silence will return.