Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao
∞
THE SOLITUDE OF ORIGIN'S REMEMBRANCE
IS “OLDER THAN GOD” COMFORT
AND
PERFECT SUSTENANCE
ew
5:49 AM - 7/1/15
∞
To find the Tao,
there is nowhere you need to search.
If it is not inside you,
it is not the Tao.
The Book of Songs says,
When you make the handle of an ax
by cutting wood with an ax,
the model is near at hand.
you already have the perfect
model of behavior inside you.
according to your true nature.
what you wouldn’t want done to you.
The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell
We talk of inside and outside,
but it’s as impossible to locate the Tao in the mind as in the world.
Anything here or there isn’t it.
Can your eyes see themselves?
When the answer searches for the answer,
what can it ever find?
if they’re only rules.
What is genuine has no models or rules.
It’s spontaneous, self-generating, free.
Nothng can stand against it.
It doesn’t depend on motivation and isn’t concerned with effect.
It just wants to be itself,
to express itself,
to give itself utterly away.
Its nature is kindness,
but there’s nothing moral about it.
The apparent other is you in disguise,
the mirrored impulse,
the reflection of your own mind,
brilliant or confused.
When you realize this, you naturally stop hurting yourself.
you come full circle, where 0° equals 360°
and
selfishness is an act of pure love.
The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted
from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell
Don't sit with indifferent people, whose breath
comes cold out of their mouths.
Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.
A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.
If you don't try to fly,
and so break yourself apart,
you will be broken open by death,
when it's too late for all you could become.
Leaves get yellow. The tree puts out fresh roots
and makes them green.
Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?
–Rumi
Ode 2865
Coleman Barks translation
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/your-work-is-deeper.html
You are a saint.
You are a murderer and
You are a monk.
The entire world
You experience is
Inside yourself.
To fix the problems of
The world,
You need only
Fix yourself.
–Wu Hsin
of earthbound creatures
must first diagnose
before it can kill
ew
GODSEED
2003