Do not yearn for fame. Do not make plans. Do not set up projects. Do not be a possessor of knowledge. Embody to the fullest what has no end and wander where there is no path. Hold what is from heaven but do not take it to be anything. Be empty. The highest man’s…
Time moves on with its usual nihilism, mows us all down, jaw-droppingly insensate to our preference for living. Guns us down… We’re caught in a universe of collision and drift, the long slow ripples of the first Big Bang as the universe breaks apart; the closest galaxies smash together, then those that are left…
Master Yu and Master Sang were friends. Once when it rained continuously for ten days, Master Yu said, “Perhaps Master Sang is unwell.” He wrapped some rice and took it to his friend. When he arrived at Sang’s gate, he heard sounds of singing or wailing accompanied by a lute. “Father? mother? Heaven? Man?”…
“When we say to one another,‘I am this’, how do we knowthat the ‘I’ isthe real ‘I’? You dream that you are a birdsoaring into the sky; you dream that you are a fishdiving into the deep.We do not know whether wewho are now speakingare awake or dreaming. It is not seeing what is…
“Here is a master smith casting his metal.If the metal were to leap up and say,‘I want to be made into Moye!”*he would think it is wrong. If I, after having already received the human form,were to say, ‘I must become a man, I must become a man!’the creator would certainly think it is…
Having transcended all life, he was clear as the morning.Having become as clear as the morning, he was able to see the One.Having seen the One, he was able to set aside past and present.Having set aside past and present, he was able to enter where there is neither life…
Tao has reality and manifestation but does nothing and has no form. It may be imparted by cannot be grasped. It may be attained but cannot be seen. It has its root and ground of existence in itself. Before there was heaven and earth It existed from eternity. From it came the powers of…
There is the great mass of nature –it supports my body. I struggle with my life; old age brings relief and death rest. What makes my life good also makes my death good. A boat may be hidden in a ravine, or a fishing net in a lake, and you…
A few more lines from Zhuang Zhou constructing a three dimensional model of what is possible within the Taoist course of practice. A “true” man or woman approaches what is possible for the individual in their place and time. Sometimes I have a restful night of sleep without haunting of dreams. But not often,…
What is meant by “the true man”? The true man of ancient times did not protest against poverty, did not boast of plenty and did not calculate the effects. If he made mistakes he did not regret, and if he was successful he did not become complacent Being like this he could ascend the…
