16

Empty your mind of all thoughts.
Let your heart be at peace.
Watch the turmoil of beings,
but contemplate their return.

Each separate being in the universe
returns to the common source.
Returning to the source is serenity.
If you don’t realize the source,
you stumble in confusion and sorrow.

When you realize where you come from,
you naturally become tolerant,
disinterested, amused,
kindhearted as a grandmother,
dignified as a king.

Immersed in the wonder of the Tao,
you can deal with whatever life brings you,
and when death comes, you are ready.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, trans. by Stephen Mitchell

This is superlative advice. Could I possibly do better, than to often remind myself of my duty, faithfulness to what I have received from ancestors, teachers, family and good friends? To mirror the source, and return what I owe. As Lao Tsu puts it: Returning to the source is serenity. Or as I’d paraphrase the matter: centered and aware. The terms used by this translator enchant by the beauty and the balance of the metaphors: kindhearted as a grandmother, dignified as a king.

The pivot point of such an encompassing word of recommendation is the concept of heart. The pictogram for heart is an abstract sketch of the aorta. The aorta is the largest artery, conduit of oxygenated blood, of life within our body.

Scholars of Chinese literature Roger T. Ames and David L. Hall informs me that for the Chinese, Xin (heart) include both mind and emotion. Western contradictions of mind vs. body, reason vs. feelings, morals vs. obstreperous will are absent. The conflicts of living are not found inwardly. Living well is a matter of managing the disturbance between all that constitutes this Jerry-self and the interactions with external things. Those externals are a long list for you as well as for me.

My mission is to live as a mindful observer, to be synergistic, responsive. Is this an accommodation? Yes. The same as agreement? Not at all. It means to recognize things for what they are. Or as Ames and Hall write:

It is governing the trunk and branches by taking care of the root; it is bring order to myriad things by managing the gate through which they emerge.