This is #9 (Tao #44) in a Series of Posts that share Synchronistically-Timely chapters from
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell's Auspicious book
The Second Book of The Tao
∞
IT
MATTERS NOT WHAT IT IS CALLED
IT IS ALL THAT IS
IT
NEVERBORN-NEVERDIE-COMMUNICATES
ANIMATES
SOURCES
IN ”ABSOLUTE REPOSE”
PERFECTION
ew
5:09 AM - 6/28/15
∞
IT
MATTERS NOT WHAT IT IS CALLED
IT IS ALL THAT IS
IT
NEVERBORN-NEVERDIE-COMMUNICATES
ANIMATES
SOURCES
IN ”ABSOLUTE REPOSE”
PERFECTION
ew
5:09 AM - 6/28/15
∞
∞
GLIDE WITH WINGS STILL AND SPREAD….
BE
RAREFIRED/RAREFIED OCTANE/ALTITUDE
WHERE ALL IS EFFORTLESS EASE.
ew
8:10 AM-6/28/15
∞
GLIDE WITH WINGS STILL AND SPREAD….
BE
RAREFIRED/RAREFIED OCTANE/ALTITUDE
WHERE ALL IS EFFORTLESS EASE.
ew
8:10 AM-6/28/15
∞
Photo from 5/3/15
#44
Chaff from the winnowing fan
cancels the eye’s natural vision;
the whine of a mosquito
can keep you awake all night;
trying to be benevolent
makes the mind a tangle or confusion.
If you want the world to stay simple,
you must move with the freedom of the wind.
Why keep making the effort
to figure out right and wrong?
Why all this huffing and puffing
as though you were beating a drum
searching for a lost child?
The snow goose doesn’t need
a daily bath to stay white,
nor does the crow stay black
by dipping itself in an inkwell.
When the springs dry up
and the fish are left on the shore,
they spew one another with moisture.
But how much better
if they could forget one another and swim off
into the lake’s vast freedom!
The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell
Chaff from the winnowing fan
cancels the eye’s natural vision;
the whine of a mosquito
can keep you awake all night;
trying to be benevolent
makes the mind a tangle or confusion.
If you want the world to stay simple,
you must move with the freedom of the wind.
Why keep making the effort
to figure out right and wrong?
Why all this huffing and puffing
as though you were beating a drum
searching for a lost child?
The snow goose doesn’t need
a daily bath to stay white,
nor does the crow stay black
by dipping itself in an inkwell.
When the springs dry up
and the fish are left on the shore,
they spew one another with moisture.
But how much better
if they could forget one another and swim off
into the lake’s vast freedom!
The Second Book of The Tao
Stephen Mitchell
COMMENTARY
The effort to be moral or benevolent is a disruption of our natural virtue.
What child would rather pray than play?
“Throw away morality,” Lao-tzu says,
“and you’ll be doing the world a big favor.”
Trying to figure out the right action does no one any good.
It’s better to keep moving, till the right action arises by itself.
When it’s genuine,
benevolence is the most beautiful quality in the world.
But when it has a motive, it feels like fish spittle,
not like clear water.
We recognize the genuine.
It’s what we all want.
It’s what we all are, when we are past our own thoughts.
Let the others comfort one another with slime:
that’s the best they can do under the circumstances.
But the instant any fish finds its way back to the lake,
it will swim off without a qualm.
“Thanks for the benevolence, muchachos,
but I’m out of here.”
The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted
from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell
The effort to be moral or benevolent is a disruption of our natural virtue.
What child would rather pray than play?
“Throw away morality,” Lao-tzu says,
“and you’ll be doing the world a big favor.”
Trying to figure out the right action does no one any good.
It’s better to keep moving, till the right action arises by itself.
When it’s genuine,
benevolence is the most beautiful quality in the world.
But when it has a motive, it feels like fish spittle,
not like clear water.
We recognize the genuine.
It’s what we all want.
It’s what we all are, when we are past our own thoughts.
Let the others comfort one another with slime:
that’s the best they can do under the circumstances.
But the instant any fish finds its way back to the lake,
it will swim off without a qualm.
“Thanks for the benevolence, muchachos,
but I’m out of here.”
The Second Book of The Tao
Compiled and adapted
from the
Chuang-tze and the Chung Yung,
with commentaries
by
Stephen Mitchell
The search for Reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings,
for it destroys the world in which you live.
–Nisargadatta Maharaj
for it destroys the world in which you live.
–Nisargadatta Maharaj
Above photo and Nisargadatta quote from:
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-most-dangerous-of-all-undertakings.html
http://peacefullpresence.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-most-dangerous-of-all-undertakings.html
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