The intrepid effort of the soul

Moby-Dick Chapter 23. The Lee Shore

Some chapters back, one Bulkington was spoken of, a tall, newlanded mariner, encountered in New Bedford at the inn. 

When on that shivering winter's night, the Pequod thrust her vindictive bows into the cold malicious waves, who should I see standing at her helm but Bulkington! I looked with symathetic awe and fearfulness upon the man, who in mid-winter hust landed from a four years' dangerous voyage, could so unrestingly push off again for still another tempestuous term. The land seemed scorching to his feet. Wonderfullest things are ever the unmentionable; deep memories yield no epitaphs; this six-inch chapter is the stoneless grave of Bulkington. Let me only say that it fared with him as with the storm-tossed ship, that miserably drives along the leeward land. The port would fain give succor, the port is pitiful; in the port is safety, comfort, hearthstone, supper, warm blankets, friends, all that's kind to our mortalities. But in that gale, the port, the land, is that ship's direst jeopardy; she must fly all hospitality; one touch of land, though it but graze the keel, would make her shudder through and through. With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights 'gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea's landlessness again; for refuge's sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

Know ye now, Bulkington? Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?

But as in landlessness alone resides highest truth, shoreless, indefinite as God--so, better is it to perish in that howling infinite, than be ingloriously dashed upon the lee, even if that were safety! For worm-like, taken, oh! who would craven crawl to land! Terrors of the terrible! is all this agony so vain? Take heart, take heart, O Bulkington! Bear thee grimly, demigod! Up from the spray of they ocean-perishing--straight up, leaps thy apotheosis!

-- Herman Melville

And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls...

"There is a wisdom that is woe; but there is a woe that is madness. And there is a Catskill eagle in some souls that can alike dive down into the blackest gorges, and soar out of them again and become invisible in the sunny spaces. And even if he for ever flies within the gorge, that gorge is in the mountains; so that even in his lowest swoop the mountain eagle is still higher than other birds upon the plain, even though they soar. "

from Chapter 96, Moby-Dick

-- Herman Melville

And alone, infinity, I read your primer

And alone, infinity, I read

Your primer:

Your wild leafless herbal --

Logarithm-table of prodigious roots.

-- Osip Mandelshtam

Instructions before visiting Earth

In the event that you wake up
and find your soul separated from source

and manifest into material form, don't panic.

Your condition is only temporary.

You have been selected for the opportunity

of human incarnation.

This 3D simulation is designed

to break up the monotony of eternity

by giving you a fully immersive experience

as a distinct ego identity.

Your body will serve

as your physcial avatar

as you navigate a dense and dramatic reality.

There will be many distractions

causing you to forget your true nature and origin.

You will experience a range of emotions

from joy to loneliness to despair.

But remember - no matter

what trials and traumas you encounter,

your soul remains perfectly safe.

At times you may feel lost or afraid.

This is totally normal.

If you ever need guidance,

simply slow down your busy mind

and bring your awareness

to the quiet place

inside yourself.

On this planet, nothing is permanent.

People and things will come and go.

You will fall in love and form sentimental attachments

only to lose everything you hold dear.

So cling to nothing too tightly, even yourself,

and when it's time to let go, let go with grace,

for nothing is owned, only borrowed.

As you walk among

the people on the planet,

try to be a good guest.

Tread lightly. Remember

that you are only visiting.

Don't make a mess.

Listen more than you speak.

Give more than you take.

Don't keep your soft heart

locked inside a glass cage,

protected from wear and tear.

You'll never make it out alive

and time passes quickly.

So come back with some battle scars

and good stories to tell.

-- James McCrae

Tintern Abbey

Lines Composed a Few Miles above Tintern Abbey, On Revisiting the Banks of the Wye during a Tour. July 13, 1798

Five years have past; five summers, with the length

Of five long winters! and again I hear

These waters, rolling from their mountain-springs

With a soft inland murmur. --Once again

Do I behold these steep and lofty cliffs,

That on a wild secluded scene impress

Thoughts of more deep seclusion; and connect

The landscape with the quiet of the sky.

The day is come when I again repose

Here, under this dark sycamore, and view

These plots of cottage-ground, these orchard-tufts,

Which at this season, with their unripe fruits,

Are clad in one green hue, and lose themselves

'Mid groves and copses. Once again I see

These hedge-rows, hardly hedge -rows, little lines

Of sportive wood run wild: these pastoral farms,

Green to the very door; and wreaths of smoke

Sent up, in silence, from among the trees!

With some uncertain notice, as might seem

Of vagrant dwellers in the houseless woods,

Or of some Hermit's cave, where by his fire

The Hermit sits alone.

                                                These beauteous forms,

Through a long absence, have not been to me

As is a landscape to a blind man's eye:

But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din

Of towns and cities, I have owed to them,

In hours of weariness, sensations sweet,

Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;

And passing even into my purer mind

With tranquil restoration:-- feelings too

Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps,

As have no slight or trivial influence

On that best portion of a good man's life,

His little, nameless, unremembered, acts

Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust,

To them I may have owed another gist,

Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood,

In which the burthen of the mystery,

In which the heavy and the weary weight

Of all this unintelligible world,

Is lightened:-- that serene and blessed mood,

In which the affections gently lead us on, --

Until, the breath of this corporal frame

And even the motion of our human blood

Almost suspended, we are laid asleep

In body, and become a living soul:

While with an eye made quiet by the power

Of harmony, and the deep power of joy,

We see into the life of things.

                                                          If this

Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft --

In darkness and amid the many shapes

Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir

Unprofitable, and the fever of the world,

Have hung upon the beatings of my heart --

How oft, in spirit, have I tuned to thee,

O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

        How often has my spirit turned to thee!

    And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought,

With many recognitions dim and faint,

And somewhat of a sad perplexity,

The picture of the mind revives again:

While here I stand, not only with the sense

Of presnent pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts

That in this moment there is life and food

For future years. And so I dare to hope,

Though changed, no doubt, from what I was when first

I came among these hills; when like a roe

I bounded o'er the mountains, by the sudes

Of the deep rivers, and the lonely streams,

Wherever nature led: more like a man

Flying from something that he dreads, than one

Who sought the thing he loved. For nature then

(The coarser pleasures of my boyish days

And their glad animal movements all gone by)

To me was all in all. -- I cannot paint

What then I was. The sounding cataract

Haunted me like a passion: the tall rock,

The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,

Their colours and their forms, were then to me

An appetite; a feeling and a love,

That had no need of a remoter charm,

By thought supplied, nor any interest

Unborrowed from the eye. -- That time is past,

And all it aching joys are now no more,

And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this

Faint I, nor mourn nor murmur; other gifts

Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,

Abundant recompense. For I have learned

To look on nature, not as in the hour

Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes

The still sad music of humanity,

Nor harsh nor grating, though of ample power

To chasten and subdue. -- And I have felt

A presence that disturbs me with the joy

Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime

Of something far more deeply interfused,

Whose dwelling si the light of setting suns,

And the wound ocean and the living air,

And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:

A motion and a spirit, that impels

All thinking things, all objects of all thought,

And rolls through all things. Therefore am I still

A lover of the meadows and the woods

And mountains; and of all that we behold

From this green earth; of all th mighty world

Of eye, and ear, -- both what they half create,

And what perceive; well pleased to recognise

In nature and the language of the sense

The anchor of my purest thoughts, the nurse,

The guide, the guardian of my heart, and soul

Of all my moral being.

                                            Nor perhcance,

If I were not this taught, should I the more

Suffer my genial spirits to decay:

For thou art with me here upon the banks

Of this fair river; thou my dearest Friend,

My dear, dear Friend; and in thy voice I catch

The language of my former heart, and read

My former pleasures in the shooting lights

Of thy wild eyes. Oh! yet a little while

May I behold in thee what I was once,

My dear, dear Sister! and this prayer I make,

Knowing that Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; 'tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgements, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e'er prevail against us, or disurb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. Therefore let the moon

Shine on thee in thy solitary walk;

And let the misty mountain-winds be free

To blow against thee: and, in after years,

When these wild ecstasies shall be matured

Into a sober pleasure; when thy mind

Shall be a mansion for all lovely forms,

Thy memory be as a dwelling-place

For all sweet sounds and harmonies; oh! then,

If solitude, or fear, pain, or groef,

Should be thy portion, with what healing thoughts

Of tender joy wilt thou remember be,

And these my exhortations! Nor, perchance --

If I should be where I no more can hear

Thy voice, nor catch from thy wild eyes these gleams

Of past existence -- wilt thou then forger

That on the banks of this delightful stream

We stood together; and that I, so long

A worshipper of Nature, hither came

Unwearied in that service: rather say

With warmer love -- oh! with far deeper zeal

Of holier love. Nor wilt thou then forget,

That after many wanderings, many years

Of absence, these steep woods and lofty cliffs,

And this green pastoral landscape, were to me

More dear, both for themselves and for thy sake!

-- William Wordsworth

The little toil of love

I had no time to Hate --

Because

The grave would hinder me --

And life was not so

Ample I

Could finish -- enmity --

Nor had I time to Love --

But since

Some industry must be --

The little toil of love --

I thought

Was large enough for me.

-- Emily Dickinson

To Hafiz of Shiraz

The rose has come into the garden,

from Nothingness into Being

Once I did not know the birds were described,

classified, observed, fixed in their proper localities.

Each bird that sprang from its tree, passed overhead, hawked from the bough,

was sole, new, dressed as no other was dressed.

Any leaf might hide the paradise-bird.

Once I believed any poem might follow my pen,

any road might beckon my feet to mapless horizons,

any eyes that I met, any hand that I took, and word that I heard

might pierce to my heart, stay forever in mine, open worlds on its hinge.

All then seemed possible; time and world were my own.

Now that I know that each star has its path, each bird

is finally feathered and grown in the unbroken shell,

each tree in the seed, each song in the life laid down --

is the night sky any less strange; should my glance less follow the flight;

should the pen shake less in my hand?

No, more and more like a birth looks the scheduled rising of Venus;

the turn of the wing in the wind more startles my blood.

Every path and life leads one way only,

out of continual miracle, through creation's fable.

over and over repeated but never yet understood,

as every word leads back to the blinding original Word.

-- Judith Wright

She's glad her simple worsted grey is silver now with clinging mist

My November Guest

My sorrow, when she's here with me,

    Thinks these dark days of autumn rain

Are beautiful as days can be;

She loves the bare, the withered tree;

    She walks the sodden pasture lane.

Her pleasure will not let me stay.

    She talks and I am fain to list:

She's glad the birds are gone away,

She's glad her simple worsted grey

    Is silver now with clinging mist.

The desolate, deserted trees,

    The faded earth, the heavy sky,

The beauties she so truly sees,

She thinks I have no eyes for these,

    And vexes me for reasons why.

Not yesterday I learned to know

    The love of bare November days

Before the coming of the snow,

But it were vain to tell her so,

    And they are better for her praise.

-- Robert Frost

The world but seems to be

The world but seems to be

    yet is nothing more

than a line drawn

    between light and shadow.

Decipher the message

    of this dream-script

and learn to distinguish time

    from Eternity.

-- Fakhruddin Iraqi

Beauty is its own excuse for being

The Rhodora

On Being Asked Whence is the Flower

In May, when sea-winds pierced our solitudes,

I found the fresh Rhodora in the woods,

Spreading its leafless blooms in a damp nook,

To please the desert and the sluggish brook.

The purple petals, fallen in the pool,

Made the black water with their beauty gay;

Here might the redbird come his plumes to cool,

And court the flower that cheapens his array.

Rhodora! if the sages ask thee why

This charm is wasted on the earth and sky,

Tell them, dear, that, if eyes were made for seeing,

Then Beauty is its own excuse for being;

Why thou wert there, O rival of the rose!

I never thought to ask; I never knew;

But, in my simple ignorance, suppose

The self-same Power that brought me there, brought you.

-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The imperfect is our paradise

The Poems of Our Climate


I

Clear water in a brilliant bowl,

Pink and white carnations. The light

In the room more like a snowy air,

Reflecting snow. A newly-fallen snow

At the end of winter when afternoons return.

Pink and white carnations -- one desires

So much more than that. The day itself

Is simplified: a bowl of white,

Cold, a cold porcelain, low and round,

With nothing moe than the carnations there.

II

Say even that this complete simplicity

Stripped one of all one's torments, concealed

The evilly compounded, vital I

And made it fresh in a world of white,

A world of clear water, brilliant-edged,

Still one would want more, one would need more,

More than a world of white and snowy scents.

III

There would still remain the never-resting mind,

So that one would want to escape, come back

To what had been so long composed.

The imperfect is our paradise.

Note that, in this bitterness, delight,

Since the imperfect is so hot in us,

Lies in flawed words and stubborn sounds.

-- Wallace Stevens

What to make of a diminished thing

The Oven Bird

There is a singer everyone has heard,

Loud, a mid-summer and a mid-wood bird,

Who makes the solid tree trunks sound again.

He says that leaves are old and that for flowers

Mid-summer is to spring as one to ten.

He says the early petal-fall is past

When pear and cherry bloom went down in showers

On sunny days a moment overcast;

And comes the other fall we name the fall.

He says the highway dust is over all.

The bird would cease and be as other birds

But that he knows in singing not to sing.

The question that he frames in all but words

Is what to make of a diminished thing.

-- Robert Frost

Two songs from a play

I

I saw a staring virgin stand

Where holy Dionysus died,

And tear the heart out of his side.

And lay the heart upon her hand

And bear that beating heart away;

Of Magnus Annus at the spring,

As though God's death were but a play.

Another Troy must rise and ser,

Another lineage feed the crow,

Another Argo's painted prow

Drive to a flashier bauble yet.

The Roman Empire stood appalled:

It dropped the reins of peace and war

When that fierce virgin and her Star

Out of the fabulous darkness called.

II

In pity for man's darkening thought

He walked that room and issued thence

In Galilean turbulence;

The Babylonian starlight brought

A fabulous, formless darkness in;

Odour of blood when Christ was slain

Made all platonic tolerance vain

And vain all Doric discipline.

Everything that man esteems

Endures a moment or a day.

Love's pleasure drives his love away,

The painter's brush consumes his dreams;

The herald's cry, the soldier's tread

Exhaust his glory and his might:

Whatever flames upon the night

Man's own resinous heart has fed.

-- William Butler Yeats

Anticipation of Love

Neither the intimacy of your look, your brow fair as

    a feast day,

nor the favor of your body, still mysterious, reserved,

    and childlike,

nor what comes to me of your life, settling in words

    or silence,

will be so mysterious a gift

as the sight of your sleep, enfolded

in the vigil of my arms.

Virgin again, miraculously, by the absolving power of

    sleep,

quiet and luminous like some happy thing recovered

    by memory,

you will give me that shore of your life that you 

    yourself do not own.

Cast up into silence

I shall discern that ultimate beach of you being

and see you for the first time, perhaps,

as God must see you --

the fiction of Time destroyed,

free from love, from me.

-- Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Robert Fitzgerald)

The Recoleta

The Recoleta

Convinced of our mortality

by so many confirmations of final dust,

we drop our voices, our steps grow slow

between the slow rows of family crypts, 

whose rhetoric of shadow and stone

promises or prefigures the coveted

dignity of being dead.

There is beauty in the tombs,

the spare Latin and link of final dates,

the conjunction of marble and flowers,

the broad intersections, as cool as patios,

and all our yesterdays of a history

now stilled and unique.

We mistake this peace for death,

believing we yearn for our end

when we yearn for sleep and oblivion.

Vibrant in swords and in passion,

asleep in ivy,

only life is real.

Space and time are its shapes,

the mind's magical modes,

and when life burns out,

space, time, and death go out with it,

as when light fails

the image in the mirror fails,

already grown dim in the dusk.

Kindly shade of the trees,

breeze rich with birds rocking the branches,

my soul losing itself in other souls --

only a wonder could undo their existence,

a wonder not to be understood,

however much its imagined recurrence

taints our days with dread.

These thoughts come to me in the Recoleta,

in the place where my ashes will He.

-- Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Norman Thomas di Giovanni)

The First Kingdom

The royal roads were cow paths.

The queen mother hunkered on a stool

and played the harpstrings of milk

into a wooden pail.

With seasoned sticks the nobles

lorded it over the hindquarters of cattle.

Units of measurement were pondered

by the cartful, barrowful and bucketful.

Time was a backward rote of names and mishaps,

bad harvests, fires, unfair settlements,

deaths in floods, murders and miscarriages.

And if my rights to it all came only

by their acclamation, what was it worth?

I blew hot and blew cold.

They were two-faced and accomodating.

And seed, breed and generation still

they are holding on, every bit

as pious and exacting and demeaned.

-- Seamus Heaney 

Tao Te Ching - UKLG (Book 2 | 38-81)

Book Two

38. Talking about power

Great power, not clinging to power,

has true power.

Lesser power, clinging to power,

lacks true power.

Great power, doing nothing,

has nothing to do.

Lesser power, doing nothing,

has an end in view.

The good the truly good do

has no end in view.

The right the very righteous do

has an end in view.

And those who act in true obedience to law

roll up their sleeves

and make the disobedient obey.

So: when we lose the Way we find power;

losing power we find goodness;

losing goodness we find righteousness;

losing righteousness we're left with obedience.

Obedience to law is the dry husk

of loyalty and good faith.

Opinion is the barren flower of the Way,

the beginning of ignorance.

So great-minded people

abide in the kernel not the husk,

in the fruit not the flower,

letting the one go, keeping the other.

*

39. Integrity

Those who of old got to be whole:

Hevaen through its wholeness is pure;

earth through its wholeness is steady;

spirit through its wholeness is potent;

the valley through its wholeness flows with rivers;

the ten thousand things through their wholeness live;

rulers through their wholeness have authority.

Their wholeness makes them what they are.

Without what makes it pure, heaven would disintegreate;

without what steadies it, earth would crack apart;

without what maakes it potent, spirit would fail;

without what fills it, the valley would run dry;

without what quickens them, the ten thousand things would die;

without what authorizes them, rulers would fall.

The root of the noble is in the common,

the high stands on what's below.

Princes and kings call themselves

"orphans, widowers, beggars,"

to get themselves rooted in the dirt.

A multiplicity of riches

is poverty.

Jade is praised as precious

but its strength is being stone.

*

40. By no means

Return in how the Way moves.

Weakness is how the Way works.

Heaven and earth and the ten thousand things

are born of being.

Being is born of nothing.

*

41. On and off

Thoughtful people hear about the Way

and try hard to follow it.

Ordinary people hear about the Way

and wander onto it and off it.

Thoughtless people hear about the Way

and make jokes about it.

It wouldn't be the Way

if there weren't jokes about it.

So they say:

The Way's brightness looks like darkness;

advancing on the Way feels like retreating;

the plain Way seems hard going.

The height of power seems a valley;

the amplest power seems not enough;

the firmest power seems feeble.

Perfect whiteness looks dirty.

The pure and simple looks chaotic.

The great square has no corners.

The great vessel is never finished.

The great tone is barely heard.

The great thought can't be thought.

The Way is hidden

in its namelessness.

But only the Way

begins, sustains, fulfills.

*

42. Children of the Way

The Way bears one.

The one bears two.

The two bear three.

The three bear the ten thousand things.

The ten thousand things

carry the yin on their shoulders

and hold in their arms the yang,

whose interplay of energy

makes harmony.

People despise

orphans, widowers, outcasts.

Yet that's what kings and rulers call themselves.

Whatever you lose, you've won.

Whatever you win, you've lost.

What others teach, I say too:

violence and aggression

destroy themselves.

My teaching rests on that.

*

43. Water and stone

What's softest in the world

rushes and run

over what's hardest in the world.

The immaterial

enters

the impenetrable.

So I know the good in not doing.

The wordless teaching,

the profit in not doing --

not many people understand it.

*

44. Fame and Fortune

Which is nearer,

name or self?

Which is dearer,

self or wealth?

Which gives more pain,

loss or gain?

All you grasp will be thrown away.

All you hoard will be utterly lost.

Contentment keeps disgrace away.

Restraint keeps you out of danger

so you can go on for a long, long time.

*

45. Real power

What's perfectly whole seems flawed,

but you can use it forever.

What's perfectly full seems empty,

but you can't use it up.

True straightness looks crooked.

Great skill looks clumsy.

Real eloquence seems to stammer.

To be comfortable in the cold, keep moving;

to be comfortable in the heat, hold still;

to be comfortable in the world, stay calm and clear.

*

46. Wanting Less

When the world's on the Way,

they use horses to haul manure.

When the world gets off the Way,

they breed warhorses on the common.

The greatest evil: wanting more.

The worst luck: discontent.

Greed's the curse of life.

To know enough's enough

is enough to know.

*

47. Looking far

You don't have to go out the door

to know what goes on in the world.

You don't have to look out the window

to see the way of heaven.

The farther you go,

the less you know.

So the wise soul

doesn't go, but knows;

doesn't look, but sees;

doesn't do, but gets it done.

*

48. Unlearning

Studying and learning daily you grow larger.

Following the Way daily you shrink.

You get smaller and smaller.

So you arrive at not doing.

You do nothing and nothing's not done.

To run things,

don't fuss with them.

Nobody who fusses

is fit to run things.

*

49. Trust and power

The wise have no mind of their own,

finding it in the minds

of ordinary people.

They're good to good people

and they're good to bad people.

Power is goodness.

They trust people of good faith

and they trust people of bad faith.

Power is trust.

They mingle their life with the world,

they mix their mind up with the world.

Ordinary people look after them.

Wise souls are children.

*

50. Love of life

To look for life

is to find death.

The thirteen organs of our living

are the thirteen organs of our dying.

Why are the organs of our life

where death enters us?

Because we hold too hard to living.

So I've heard

if you live in the right way,

when you cross country

you needn't fear to meet a mad bull or a tiger;

when you're in a battle

you needn't fear the weapons.

The bull would find nowhere to jab its horns,

the tiger nowhere to stick its claws,

the sword nowhere for its point to go.

Why? Because there's nowhere in you

for death to enter.

*

51. Nature, nurture

The Way bears them;

power nurtures them;

their own being shapes them;

their own energy completes them.

And not one of the ten thousand things

fails to hold the Way sacred

or to obey its power.

Their reverence for the Way

and obedience to its power

are unforced and always natural.

For the Way gives them life;

its power nourishes them,

mothers and feeds them,

completes and matures them,

looks after them, protects them.

To have without possessing,

do without claiming,

lead without controlling:

this is mysterious power.

*

52. Back to the beginning

The beginning of everything

is the mother of everything.

Truly to know the mother

is to know her children,

and truly to know the children

is to tun back to the mother.

The body comes to its ending

but there is nothing to fear.

Close the openings,

shut the doors,

and to the end of life

nothing will trouble you.

Open the openings,

be busy with business,

and to the end of life

nothing can help you.

Insight sees the insignificant.

Strength knows how to yield.

Use the way's light, return to its insight,

and so keep from going too far.

That's how to practice what's forever.

*

53. Insight

If my mind's modest,

I walk the great way.

Arrogance

is all I fear.

The great way is low and plain,

but people like shortcuts over the mountains.

The palace is full of splendor

and the fields are full of weeds

and the granaries are full of nothing.

People wearing ornaments and fancy clothes,

carrying weapons,

drinking a lot and eating a lot,

having a lot of things, a lot of money:

shameless thieves.

Surely their way

isn't the way.

*

54. Some rules

Well planted is not uprooted,

well kept is not lost,

The offerings of the generations

to the ancestors will not cease.

To follow the way yourself is real power.

To follow it in the family is abundant power.

To follow it in the community is steady power.

To follow it in the whole country is lasting power.

To follow it in the world is universal power.

So in myself I see what self is,

in my household I see what family is,

in my town I see what community is,

in my nation I see what a country is,

in the world I see what is under heaven.

How do I know the world is so?

By this.

*

55. The sign of the mysterious

Being full of power

is like being a baby.

Scorpions don't sting,

tigers don't attach,

eagles don't strike.

Soft bones, weak muscles,

but a firm grasp.

Ignorant of the intercourse

of man and woman

yet the baby penis is erect.

True and perfect energy!

All day long screaming and crying,

but never getting hoarse.

True and perfect harmony!

To know harmony

is to know what's eternal.

To know what's eternal

is enlightenment.
Increase of life is full of portent:

the strong heart exhausts the vital breath.

The full-grown is on the edge of age.

Not the Way.

What's not the Way soon dies.

*

56. Mysteries of power

Who knows

doesn't talk.

Who talks

doesn't know.

Closing the openings,

shutting doors,

blunting edge,

loosing bond,

dimming light,

be one with the dust of the way.

So you come to the deep sameness.

Then you can't be controlled by love

or by rejection.

You can''t be controlled by profit

or by loss.

You can't be controlled by praise

or by humiliation.

Then you have honor under heaven.

*

57. Being simple

Run the country by doing what's expected.

Win the war by doing the unexpected.

Control the world by doing nothing.

How do I know that?

By this.

The more restrictions and prohibitions in the world,

the poorer people get.

The more experts the country has

the more of a mess it's in.

The more ingenious the skillful are,

the more monstrous their inventions.

The louder the call for law and order,

the more the thieves and conmen multiply.

So a wise leader might say:

I practice inaction, and the people look after themselves.

I love to be quiet, and the people themselves find justice.

I don't do business, and the people prosper on their own.

I don't have wants, and the people themselves are uncut wood.

*

58. Living with change

When the government's dull and confused,

the people are placid.

When the government's sharp and keen,

the people are discontented.

Alas! misery lies under happiness,

and happiness sits on misery, alas!

Who knows where it will end?

Nothing is certain.

The normal changes into the monstrous,

the fortunate into the unfortunate,

and our bewilderment

goes on and on.

And so the wise

shape without cutting,

square without sawing,

true without forcing.

They are the light that does not shine.

*

59. Staying on the way

In looking after your life and following the way,

gather spirit.

Gather spirit early,

and so redouble power,

and so become invulnerable.

Invulnerable, unlimited,

you can do what you like with material things.

But only if you hold to the Mother of things

will you do it for long.

Have deep roots, a strong trunk.

Live long by looking long.

*

60. Staying Put

Rule a big country

the way you cook a small fish.

If you keep control by following the Way,

troubled spirits won't act up.

They won't lose their immaterial strength,

but they won't harm people with it,

nor will wise sould come to harm.

And so, neither harming the other,

these powers will come together in unity.

*

61. Lying low

The polity of greatness

runs downhill like a river to the sea,

joining with everything,

woman to everything.

By stillness the woman

may always dominate the man,

lying quiet underneath him.

So a great country

submitting to small ones, dominates them;

so small countries,

submitting to a great one, dominate it.

Lie low to be on top,

be on top by lying low.

*

62. The gift of the way

The way is the hearth and home

of the ten thousand things.

Good souls treasure it,

lost souls find shelter in it.

Fine words are for sale,

fine deeds go cheap;

even worthless people can get them.

So, at the coronation of the Son of Heaven

when the Three Ministers take office,

you might race out in a four-horse chariot

to offer a jade screen;

but wouldn't it be better to sit still

and let the Way be your offering?

Why was the Way honored

in the old days?

Wasn't it said:

Seek, you'll find it.

Hide, it will shelter you.

So it was honored under heaven.

*

63. Consider beginnings

Do without doing.

Act without action.

Savor the flavorless.

Treat the small as large,

the few as many.

Meet injury

with the power of goodness.

Study the hard while it's easy.

Do big things while they're small.

The hardest jobs in the world start out easy,

the great affairs of the world start small.

So the wise soul,

by never dealing with great things,

gets great things done.

Now, since taking things too lightly makes them worthless,

and taking things too easy makes them hard,

the wise soul,

by treating the easy as harrd,

doesn't find anything hard.

*

64. Mindful of little things

It's easy to keep hold of what hasn't stirred,

easy to plan what hasn't occurred.

It's easy to shatter delicate things,

easy to scatter little things.

Do things before they happen.

Get them straight before they get mixed up.

The tree you can't reach your arms around

grew from a tiny seedling.

The nine-story tower rises

from a heap of clay.

The ten-thousand-mile journey

begins beneath your foot.

Do, and do wrong;

Hold on, and lose.

Not doing, the wise soul

doesn't do it wrong,

and not holding on,

doesn't lose it.

(In all their undertakings,

it's just as they're almost finished

that people go wrong.

Mind the end as the beginning,

then it won't go wrong.)

That's why the wise

want not to want,

care nothing for hard-won treasures,

learn not to be learned,

turn back to what people overlooked.

They go along with things as they are,

but don't presume to act.

*

65. One power

Once upon a time

Those who ruled according to the Way

didn't use it to make people knowing

but to keep them unknowing.

People get hard to manage

when they know too much.

Whoever rules by intellect

is a curse upon the land.

Whoever rules by ignorance

is a blessing on it.

To understand these things

is to have a pattern and a model

and to understand the pattern and the model

is mysterious power.

Mysterious power

goes deep.

It reaches far.

It follows things back,

clear back to the great oneness.

*

66. Lowdown

Lakes and rivers are lords of the hundred valleys.

Why? Because they'll go lower.

So they're the lords of the hundred valleys.

Just so, a wise soul,

wanting to be above other people,

talks to them from below

and to guide them

follows them.

And so the wise soul

predominates without dominating,

and leads without misleading.

And people don't get tired

of enjoying and praising

one who, not competing,

has in all the world

no competitor.

*

67. Three treasures

Everybody says my way is great

but improbable.

All greatness

is improbable.

What's probable

is tedious and petty.

I have three treasures.

I keep and treasure them.

The first, mercy,

the second, moderation,

the third, modesty.

If you're merciful you can be brave,

if you're moderate you can be generous,

and if you don't presume to lead

you can lead the high and mighty.

But to be brave without compassion.

or generous without self-restraint,

or to take the lead,

is fatal.

Compassion wins the battle

and holds the fort;

it is the bulwark set

around those heaven helps.

*

68. Heaven's lead

The best captain doesn't rush in front.

The fiercest fighter doesn't bluster.

The big winner isn't competing/

The best boss takes a low footing.

This is the power of noncompetition.

This is the right use of ability.

To follow heaven's lead

has always been the best way.

*

69. Using mystery

The expert in warfare says:

Rather than dare make the attck

I'd take the attack;

rather than dare advance an inch

I'd retreat a foot.

It's called marching without marching,

rolling up your sleeves without flexing your muscles,

being armed without weapons,

giving the attacker no opponent.

Nothing's worse than attacking what yields.

To attack what yields is to throw away the prize.

So, when matched armies meet,

the one who comes to grief

is the true victor.

*

70. Being obscure

My words are so easy to understand,

so easy to follow,

and yet nobody in the world

understands or follows them.

Words come from an ancestry,

deeds from a mastery:

when these are unknown, so am I.

In my obscurity

is my value.

That's why the wise

wear their jade under common clothes.

*

71. The sick mind

To know without knowing is best.

Not knowing without knowing it is sick.

To be sick of sickness

is the only cure.

The wise aren't sick.

They're sick of sickness,

so they're well.

*

72. The right fear

When we don't fear what we should fear

we are in fearful danger.

We ought not to live in narrow houses,

we ought not to do stupid work.

If we don't accept stupidity

we won't act stupidly.

So, wise souls know but don't show themselves,

look after but don't prize themselves,

letting the one go, keeping the other.

*

73. Daring to do

Brave daring leads to death.

Brave caution leads to life.

The choice can be the right one

or the wrong one.

Who will interpret

the judgement of heaven?

Even the wise soul

finds it hard.

The way of heaven

doesn't compete

yet wins handily,

doesn't speak

yet answers fully,

doesn't summon

yet attracts.

It acts

perfectly easily.

The net of heaven

is vast, vast,

wide-meshed,

yet misses nothing.

*

74. The Lord of Slaughter

When normal, decent people don't fear death,

how can you use death to frighten them?

Even when they have a normal fear of death,

who of us dare take and kill the one who doesn't?

When people are normal and decent and death-fearing,

there's always an executioner.

To take the place of that executioner

is to take the place of the great carpenter.

People who cut the great carpenter's wood

seldom get off with their hands unhurt.

*

75. Greed

People are starving.

The rich gobble taxes,

that's why people are starving.

People rebel.

The rich oppress them,

that's why people rebel.

People hold life cheap.

The rich make it too costly,

that's why people hold it cheap.

But those who don't live for the sake of living

are worth more than the wealth-seekers.

*

76. Hardness

Living people

are soft and tender.

Corpses are hard and stiff.

The ten thousand things,

the living grass, the trees,

are soft, pliant.

Dead, they're dry and brittle.

So hardness and stiffness

go with death;

tenderness, softness,

go with life.

And the hard sword fails,

the stiff tree's felled.

The hard and great go under.

The soft and weak stay up.

*

77. The bow

The Way of heaven

is like a bow bent to shoot:

its top end brought down,

its lower end raised up.

It brings the high down,
lifts the low,

takes from those who have,

gives to those who have not.

Such is the Way of heaven.

taking from people who have,

giving to people who have not.

Not so the human way:

ot takes from those who have not

to fill up those who have.

Who has enough to fill up everybody?

Only those who have the Way.

So the wise

do without claiming,

achieve without asserting,

wishing not to show their worth.

*

78. Paradoxes

Nothing in the world

is as soft, as weak, as water;

nothing else can wear away

the hard, the strong,

and remain unaltered.

Soft overcomes hard,

weak overcomes strong.

Everybody knows it,

nobody uses the knowledge.

So the wise say:

By bearing common defilements

you become a sacrificer at the altar of earth;

by bearing common evils

you become a lord of the world.

Right words sound wrong.

*

79. Keeping the contract

After a great enmity is settled

some enmity always remains.

How to make peace?

Wise sould keep their part of the contract

and don't make demands on others.

People whose power is real fulfill their obligations;

people whose power is hollow insist on their claims.

The Way of heaven plays no favorites.

It stays with the good.

*

80. Freedom

Let there be a little country without many people.

Let them have toold that do the work of ten or a hundred,

and never use them.

Let them be mindful of death

and disinclined to long journeys.

They'd have ships and carriages,

but no place to go.
They'd have armor and weapons,

but no parades.

Instead of writing,

they might go back to using knotted cords.

They'd enjoy eating,

take pleasure in clothes,

be happy with their houses,

devoted to their customs.

*

81. Telling it true

True words aren't charming,

charming words aren't true.

Good people aren't contentious,

contentious people aren't good.

People who know aren't learned,

learned people don't know.

Wise souls don't hoard;

the more they do for others the more they have,

the more they give the richer they are.

The Way of heaven profits without destroying.

Doing without outdoing

is the Way of the wise.

The next little country might be so close

the people could hear cocks crowing

and dogs barking there,

but they'd get old and die

without ever having been there.

-- End of Book 2.

Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin

proofed by intransigent service

The Master

He dwelt in himself

like a rook in an unroofed tower.

To get close I had to maintain

a climb up deserted ramparts

and not flinch, not raise an eye

to search for an eye on the watch

from his coign of seclusion.

Deliberately he would unclasp

his book of withholding

a page at a time, and it was nothing

arcane, just the old rules

we all had inscribed on our slates.

Each character blocked on the parchment secure

in its volume and measure.

Each maxim given its space.

Tell the truth. Do not be afriad.

Durable, obstinate notions,

like quarrymen's hammers and wedges

proofed by intransigent service.

Like coping stones where you rest

in the balm of the wellspring.

How flimsy I felt climbing down

the unrailed stairs on the wall,

hearing the purpose and venture

in a wingflap above me.

-- Seamus Heaney

The Terrapin

The terrapin and his house are one.

Though he may go, he's never gone.

He's housed within, from nose to toe:

A door, a floor, and no window.

There's little room; the light is dim;

His furniture is only him.

He doesn't speak what he thinks about;

Where no guest comes, a thought's a shout.

He pokes along; he's in no haste:

He has no map and no suitcase;

He has no worries and no woes,

For where he is is where he goes.

Ponder this wonder under his dome

Who, wandering, is always home.

-- Wendell Berry

 

A Drink of Water

A Drink of Water


She came every morning to draw water

Like an old bat staggering up the field:

The pump's whooping cough, the bucket's clatter

And slow diminuendo as it filled,

Announced her. I recall

Her gray apron, the pocked white enamel

Of the brimming bucket, and the treble

Creak of her voice like the pump's handle.

Nights when a full moon lifted past her gable

It fell back through her window and would lie

Into the water set out on the table.

Where I have dipped to drink again, to be

Faithful to the admonishment on her cup,

Remember the Giver, fading off the lip.

-- Seamus Heaney

The revery alone will do

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, --

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

-- Emily Dickinson

My lowlands of the mind

Fosterling

'That heavy greenness fostered by water'

At school I loved one picture's heavy greenness --

Horizons rigged with windmills' arms and sails.

The millhouses' still outlines. Their in-placeness

Still more in place when mirrored in canals.

I can't remember never having known

The immanent hydraulics of a land

Of glar and glit and floods at dailigone.

My silting hope. My lowlands of the mind.

Heaviness of being. And poetry

Sluggish in the doldrums of what happens.

Me waiting until I was nearly fity

To credit marvels. Like the tree-clock of tin cans

The tinkers made. So long for air to brighten.

Time to be dazzled and the heart to lighten.

-- Seamus Heaney

[For the sake of a single poem]

"...Ah, poems amount to so little when you write them too early in your life. You ought to wait and gather sense and sweetness for a whole lifetime, and a long one if possible, and then, at the very end, you might perhaps be able to write ten good lines. For poems are not, as people think, simply emotions (one has emotions early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a single poem, you must see many cities, many people and Things, you must understand animals, must feel how birds fly, and know the gesture which small flowers make when they open in the morning. You must be able to think back to streets in unknown neighborhoods, to unexpected encounters, and to partings you had long seen coming; to days of childhood whose mystery is still unexplained, to parents whom you had to hurt when they brought in a joy and you didn't pick it up (it was a joy meant for somebody else --); to childhood illnesses that began so strangely with so many profound and dificult transformations, to days in quiet, restrained rooms and to mornings by the sea, to the sea itself, to seas, to nights of travel that rushed along high overhead and went flying with all the stars, -- and it is still not enough to be able to think of all that. You must have memories of many nights of love, each one different from all the others, memories of women screaming in labor, and of light, pale, sleeping girls who have just given birth and are closing again. But you must also have been beside the dying, must have sat beside the dead in the room with the open window and the scattered noises. And it is not yet enough to have memories, You must be able to forget them when they are many, and you must have the immense patience to wait until they return. For the memories themselves are not important. Only when they have changed into our very blood, into glance and gesture, and are nameless, no longer to be distinguished from ourselves -- only then can it happen that in some very rare hour the first word of a poem arises in their midst and goes forth from them."

From the Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge

-- Rainer Maria Rilke 

Turning-Point

The road from intensity to greatness 

    passes through sacrifice. --Kassner


For a long time he attained it in looking.

Stars would fall to their knees

beneath his compelling vision.

Or as he looked on, kneeling,

his urgency's fragrance

tired out a god until

it smiled at him in its sleep.

Towers he would gaze at so

that they were terrified:

building them up again, suddenly, in an instant!

But how often the landscape,

overburdened by day,

came to rest in his silent awareness, at nightfall.

Animals trusted him, stepped

into his open look, grazing,

and the imprisoned lions

stared in as if into an incomprehensible freedom;

birds, as it felt them, flew headlong

through it; and flowers, as enormous

as they are to children, gazed back

into it, on and on.

And the rumor that there was someone

who knew how to look,

stirred those less

visible creatures;

stirred the women.

Looking how long?

For how long now, deeply deprived,

beseechng in the depths of his glance?

When he, whose vocation was Wiating, sat far from home --

the hotel's distracted unnoticing bedroom

moody around him, and in the avoided mirror

once more the room, and later

from the tormenting bed

once more:

then in the air the voices

discussed, beyond comprehension,

his heart, which could still be felt;

debated what through the painfully buried body

could somehow be felt -- his heart;

debated and passed their judgement:

that it did not have love.

(And denied him further communions.)

For there is a boundary to looking.

And the world that is looked at so deeply

wants to flourish in love.

Work of the eyes is done, now

go and do heart-work

on all the images imprisoned within you; for you

overpowered them; but even now you don't know them.

Learn, inner man, to look on your inner woman,

the one attained from a thousand

natures, the merely attained but

not yet beloved form.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

The Swan

This laboring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,

is like the awkward walking of the swan.

And dying -- to let go, no longer feel

the solid ground we stand on every day --

is like his anxious letting himself fall

into the water, which receives him gently

and which, as though with reverence and joy,

draws back past him in streams on either side;

while, infinitely silent and aware,

in his full majesty and ever more

indifferent, he condescends to glide.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

The Flamingos

Jardin des Plantes, Paris

With all the subtle paints of Fragonard

no more of their red and white could be expressed

then someone would convey about his mistresss

by telling you, "She was lovely, lying there

still soft with sleep." They rise above the green

grass and lightly sway on their long pink stems,

side by side, like enormous feathery blossoms,

seducing (more seductivelt than Phryne)

themsleves; till, necks curling, they sink their large 

pale eyes into the softness of their down,

where apple-red and jet-black lie concealed.

A shriek of envy shakes the parrot cage;

but they stretch out, astonished, and one by one

stride into their imaginary world.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Buddha in Glory

Center of all centers, core of cores,

almost self-enclosed and growing sweet --

all this universe, to the furthest stars

and beyond them, is your flesh, your fruit.

Now you feel how nothing clings to you;

your vast shell reaches into endless space,

and there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.

Illuminated in your infinite peace,

a billion stars go spinning through the night,

blazing high above your head.

But in you is the presence that

will be, when all the stars are dead.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Love Song

How shall I keep my soul

from touching yours? How shall I

lift it out beyond you toward other things?

Ah, I would like to lodge it

in the dark with some lost thing

in some silent foreign place

that doesn't tremble when your depths stir.

Yes whatever touches you and me

blends us together just as a bow's stroke

from two strings draws one voice.

Across what instrument are we stretched taut?

And what player holds us in his hand?

O sweet song.

-- Rainer Maria Rilke

Autumn Refrain

The skreak and skritter of evening gone
And grackles gone and sorrows of the sun,

The sorrows of sun, too, gone . . . the moon and moon,

The yellow moon of words about the nightingale

In measureless measures, not a bird for me

But the name of a bird and the name of a nameless air

I have never -- shall never hear. And yet beneath

The stillness of everything gone, and being still,

Being and sitting still, something resides,

Some skreaking and skrittering residuum

And grates these evasions of the nightingale

Though I have never -- shall never hear that bird.

And the stillness is in the key, all of it is,

The stillness is all in the key of that desolate sound.

-- Wallace Stevens

Tao Te Ching - UKLG (Book 1 | 1-37)

1. Taoing


The way you can go

isn't the real way.

The name you can say

isn't the real name.

Heaven and earth

begin in the unnamed:

name's the mother

of ten thousand things.

So the unwanting soul

sees what's hidden,

and the ever-wanting soul

sees only what it wants.

Two things, one origin,

but different in name,

whose identity is mystery.

Mystery of all mysteries!

The door to the hidden.

*

2. Soul Food

Everybody on earth knowing

that beauty is beautiful

makes ugliness.

Everybody knowing

that goodness is good

makes wickedness.

For being and nonbeing

arise together;

hard and easy

complete each other;

long and short

shape each other;

high and low

depend on each other;

note and voice

make the music together;

before and after

follow each other.

That's why the wise soul

does without doing,

teaches without talking.

The things of this world

exist, they are;

you can't refuse them.

To bear and not to own;

to act and not lay claim;

to do the work and let it go;

for just letting it go

is what makes it stay.

*

3. Hushing

Not praising the praiseworthy

keeps people uncompetitive.

Not prizing rare treasures

keeps people from stealing.

Not looking at the desirable

keeps the mind quiet.

So the wise soul

governing people

would empty their minds.

fill their bellies,

weaken their wishes,

strengthen their bones,

keep people unknowing,

unwanting,

keep the ones who do know

from doing anything.

When you do not-doing,

nothing's out of order.

*

4.  Sourceless

The way is empty,

used, but not used up.

Deep, yes! ancestral

to the ten thousand things.

Blunting edge,

loosing bond,

dimming light,

the way is the dust of the way.

Quiet,

yes, and likely to endure.

Whose child? born

before the gods.

*

5. Useful emptiness

Heaven and earth aren't humane.

To them the ten thousand things

are straw dogs.

Wise souls aren't humane.

To them the hundred families

are straw dogs.

Heaven and earth

act as a bellows:

Empty yet structures,

it moves, inexhaustibly giving.

*

6. What is complete

The valley spirit never dies.

Call it the mystery, the woman.

The mystery,

the Door of the Woman,

is the root

of earth and heaven.

Forever this endures, forever.

And all its uses are easy.

*

7. Dim brightness

Heaven will last,

earth will endure.

How can they last so long?

They don't exist for themselves

and so can go on and on.

So wise souls

leaving self behind

move forward,

and setting self aside

stay centered.

Why let the self go?

To keep what the soul needs.

*

8. Easy by nature

True goodness

is like water.

Water's good

for everything.

It doesn't compete.

It goes right

to the low loathsome places,

and so finds the way.

For a house, 

the good thing is level ground.

In thinking,

depth is good.

The good of giving is magnanimity;

of speaking, honesty;

of government, order.

The good of work is skill,

and of action, timing.

No competition,

so no blame.

*

9. Being quiet

Brim-fill the bowl,

it'll spill over.

Keep sharpening the blade,

you'll soon blunt it.

Nobody can protect

a house full od gold and jade.

Wealth, status, pride,

are their own ruin.

To do good, work well, and lie low

is the way of the blessing.

*

10. Techniques

Can you keep your soul in its body,

hold fast to the one,

and so learn to be whole?

Can you enter your energy,

be soft, tender

and so learn to be a baby?

Can you keep the deep water still and clear,

so it reflects without blurring?

Can you love people and run things,

and do so by not doing?

Opening, closing the Gate of Heaven,

can you be like a bird with her nestlings?

Piercing bright through the cosmos,

can you know by not knowing?

To give birth, to nourish,

to bear and not to own,

to act and not lay claim,

to lead and not to rule:

this is mysterious power.

*

11.  The uses of not

Thirty spokes

meet in the hub.

Where the wheel isn't

is where it's useful.

Hollowed out,

clay makes a pot.

Where the pot's not

is where it's useful.

Cut doors and windows

to make a room.

Where the room isn't,

there's room for you.

So the profit in what is

is in the use of what isn't.

*

12. Not wanting

The five colors

blind our eyes.

The five notes

deafen our ears.

The five flavors

dull our taste.

Racing, chasing, hunting,

drives people crazy.

Trying to get rich

ties people in knots.

So the wise soul

watches with the inner

not the outward eye,

letting that go,

keeping this.

*

13. Shameless

To be in favor or disgrace

is to live in fear.

To take the body seriously

is to admit one can suffer.

What does that mean,

to be in favor or disgrace

is to live in fear?

Favor debases:

we fear to lose it,

fear to win it.

So to be in favor or disgrace

is to live in fear.

What does that mean,

to take the body seriously

is to admit one can suffer?

I suffer because I'm a body;

if I weren't a body,

how could I suffer?

So people set their bodily good

before the public good

could be entrusted with the commonweatlh,

and people who treaty the body politic

as gently as their own body

would be worthy to govern the commonweatlh.

*

14. Celebrating mystery

Look at it: nothing to see.

Call it colorless.

Listen to it: nothing to hear.

Call it soundless.

Reach for it: nothing to hold.

Call it intangible.

Triply undifferntiated,

it merges into oneness,

not bright above,

not dark below.

Never, oh! never

can it be named.

It reverts, it returns

to unbeing.

Call it the form of the unformed,

the image of no image.

Call it unthinkable thought.

Face it: no face

Follow it: no end.

Holding fast to the old Way,

we can live in the present.

Mindful of the ancient beginnings,

we hold the thread of the Tao.

*

15. People of power

Once upon a time

people who knew the Way

were subtle, spiritual, mysterious, penetrating,

unfathomable.

Since they're inexplicable

I can only say what they seemed like:

Cautious, oh yes, as if wading through a winter river.

Alert, as if afraid of the neighbors.

Polite and quiet, like houseguests.

Elusive, like melting ice.

Blank, like uncut wood.

Empty, like valleys.

Mysterious, oh yes, they were like troubled water.

Who can by stillness, little by little

make what is troubled grow clear?

Who can by movement, little by little

make what is still grow quick?

To follow the Way

is not to need fulfillment.

Unfulfilled, one may live on

needing no renewal.

*

16. Returning to the root

Be completely empty. Be perfectly serene.

The ten thousand things arise together;

in their arising is their return.

Now they flower,

and flowering

sink homeward,

returning to the root.

The return to the root

is peace.

Peace: to accept what must be,

to know what endures.

Is that knowledge is wisdom.

Without it, ruin, disorder.

To know what endures

is to be openhearted,

magnanimous,

regal,

blessed,

following the Tao,

the way that endures forever.

The body comes to its ending,

but there is nothing to fear.

*

17. Acting simply

True leaders

are hardly known to their followers.

Next after them are the leaders

the people know and admire;

after them, those they fear;

after them, those they despose.

To give no trust

is to get no trust.

When the work's done right,

with no fuss or boasting,

ordinary people say,

Oh, we did it.

*

18. Second bests

In the degradation of the great way

come benevolence and righteousness.

With the exaltation of learning and prudence

comes immense hypocrisy.

The disordered family

is full of dutiful children and parents.

The disordered society

is full of loyal patriots.

*

19. Raw silk and uncut wood

Stop being holy, forget being prudent,

it'll be hundred times better for everyone.

Stop being altruistic, forget being righteous,

people will remember what family feeling is.

Stop planning, forget making a profit,

there won't be any thieves and robbers.

But even these three rules

needn't be followed; what works reliably

is to know the raw silk,

hold the uncut wood.

Need little,

want less.

Forget the rules.

Be untroubled.

(UKG: "Raw silk" and "uncut wood" are images traditionally associated with the characters su (simple, plain) and p'u (natural, honest). )

*

20. Being different

How much difference between yes and no?

What difference between good and bad?

What the people fear

must be feared.

O desolation!

Not yet, not yet has it reached its limit!

Everybody's cheerful,

cheerful as if at a party,

or climbing a tower in springtime.

And here I sit unmoved,

clueless, like a child,

a baby too young to smile.

Forlorn, forlorn.

Like a homeless person.

Most people have plenty.

I'm the one that's poor,

a fool right through.

Ignorant, ignorant.

Most people are so bright.

I'm the one that's dull.

Most people are so keen.

I don't have te answers.

Oh, I'm desolate, at sea,

adrift, without harbor.

Everybody has something to do.

I'm the clumsy one, out of place.

I'm the different one,

for my food

is the milk of the mother.

*

21. The empty heart

The greatest power is the gift

of following the Way alone.

How the Way does things

is hard to grasp, elusive.

Elusive, yes, hard to grasp,

yet there are thoughts in it.

Hard to grasp, yes, elusive,

yet there are things in it.

Hard to make out, yes, and obscure,

yet there is spirit in it,

veritable spirit.

There is certainty in it.

From long, long ago till now

it has kept its name.

So it saw

the beginning of everything.

How do I know

anything about the beginning?

By this. 

*

22. Growing downward

Be broken to be whole.

Twist to be straight.

Be empty to be full.

Wear out to be renewed

Have little and gain much.

Have much and get confused.

So wise sould hold to the one,

and test all things against it.

Not showing themselves,

they shine forth.

Not justifying themselves,

they're self-evident.

Not praising themselves,

they're accomplished.

Not competing,

they have in all the world no competitor.

What they used to say in the old days,

"Be broken to be whole,"

was that mistaken?

Truly, to be whole

is to return.

*

23. Nothing and not

Nature doen't make long speeches.

A whirlwind doesn't last all morning.

A cloudburst doesn't last all day.

Who makes the wind and rain?

Heaven and earth do.

If heaven and earth don't go on and on,

certainly people don't need to.

The people who work with Tao

are Tao people,

they belong to the Way.

People who work with power

belong to power.

People who work with loss

belong to what's lost.

Give yourself to the Way

and you'll be at home on the Way.

Give yourself to power

and you'll be at home in power.

Give yourself to loss

and when you're lost you'll be at home.

To give no trust

is to get no trust.

*

24. Proportion

You can't keep standing on tiptoe

or walk in leaps and bounds.

You can't shine by showing off

or get ahead by pushing.

Self-satisfied people do no good,

self-promoters never grow up.

Such stuff is to the Tao

as garbage is to food

or a tumor to the body,

hateful.

The follower of the way

avoids it.

*

25. Imagining mystery

There is something

that contains everything.

Before heaven and earth

it is.

Oh, it is still, unbodied,

all on its own, unchanging,

all-pervading,

ever-moving.

So it can act as the mother

of all things.

Not knowing its real name,

we only call it the Way.

If it must be named,

let its name be Great.

Greatness means going on,

going on means going far,

and going far means turning back.

So they say: "The Way is great,

heaven is great,

earth is great,

and humankind is great;

four greatnesses in the world,

and humanity is one of them."

People follow earth

earth follows heaven,

heaven follows the Way,

the Way follows what is.

*

26. Power of the heavy

Heavy is the root of light.

Still is the master of moving.

So wise sould make their daily march

with the heavy baggage wagon.

Only when safe

in a solid, quiet house

do they lay care aside.

How can a lord of ten thousand chariots

let his own person

weigh less in the balance than this land?

Lightness will lose him his foundation,

movement will lose him mastery.

*

27. Skill

Goof walkers leave no track.

Good talkers don't stammer.

Good counters don't use their fingers.

The best door's unlocked and unopened.

The best knot's not in a rope and can't be untied.

So wise sould are good at caring for people,

never turning their back on anyone.

They're good at looking after things,

never turning their back on anything.

There's a light hidden here.

Good people teach people who aren't good yet;

the less good are the makings of the good.

Anyone who doesn't respect a teacher

or cherish a student

may be clever, but has gone astray.

There's a deep mystery here.

*

28. Turning back

Knowing man

and staying woman,

be the riverbed of the world.

Being the world's riverbed

of eternal unfailing power

is to go back again to be newborn.

Knowing light

and staying dark,

be a pattern to the world.

Being the world's pattern

of eternal unerring power

is to go back again to boundlessness.

Knowing glory

and staying modest,

be the valley of the world.

Being the world's valley

of eternal inexhaustible power

is to go back again to the natural.

Natural wood is cut up

and made into useful things.

Wise souls are used

to make into leaders.

Just so, a great carving

is done without cutting.

*

29.  Not doing

Those who think to win the world

by doing something to it,

I see them come to grief.

For the world is a sacred object.

Nothing is to be done to it.

To do anything to it is to damage it.

To seize it is to lose it.

Under heaven some things lead, some follow,

some blow hot, some cold,

some are strong, some weak,

some fulfilled, some fail.

So the wise soul keeps away

from the extremes, excess, extravagance.

*

30. Not making war

A Taoist wouldn't advise a ruler

to use force of arms or conquest;

that tactic backfires.

Where the army marched

grow thorns and thistles.

After the war

come the bad harvests.

Good leaders prosper, that's all,

not presuming on victory.

They prosper without boasting,

or domineering, or arrogance,

prosper because they can't help it,

prosper without violence.

Things flourish then perish.

Not the Way.

What's not the Way

soon ends.

*

31. Against war

Even the best weapon 

is an unhappy tool,

hateful to living things.

So the follower of the Way

stays away from it.

Weapons are unhappy tools,

not chosen by thoughtful people,

to be used only when there is no choice,

and with a calm, still mind,

without enjoyment.

To enjoy using weapons

is to enjoy killing people,

and to enjoy killing people 

is to lose your share in the common good.

It is right that the murder of many people

be mourned and lamented.

It is right that a victor in war

be recived with funeral ceremonies.

*

32. Sacred power

The way goes on forever nameless.

Uncut wood, nothing important,

yet nobody under heaven

dare try to carve it.

If rulers and leaders could use it,

the ten thousand things

would gather in homage,

heaven and earth would drop sweet dew,

and people, without being ordered,

would be fair to one another.

To order, to givern,

is to begin naming;

when names proliferate

it's time to stop.

If you know when to stop

you're in no danger.

The way in the world

is as a stream to a valley,

a river to the sea.

*

33. Kinds of power

Knowing other people is intelligence,

knowing yourself is wisdom.

Overcoming others takes strength,

Overcoming yourself takes greatness.

Contentment is wealth.

Boldly pushing forward takes resolution.

Staying put keeps you in position.

To live till you die

is to live long enough.

*

34. Perfect Trust

The Great Way runs

to left, to right,

the ten thousand things

depending on it,

living on it,

accepted by it.

Doing its work,

it goes unnamed.

Clothing and feeding

the ten thousand things,

it lays no claim on them

and asks nothing of them.

Call it a small matter.

The ten thousand things

return to it,

though it lays no claim on them.

Call it great.

So the wise soul

without great doings

achieves greatness.

*

35. Humane power

Hold fast to the great thought

and all the world will come to you,

harmless, peaceable, serene.

Walking around, we stop

for music, for food.

But if you taste the Way

it's flat, inspid.

It looks like nothing much,

it sounds like nothing much.

And yet you can't get enough of it.

*

36. The small dark light

What seeks to shrink

must first have grown;

what seeks weakness

surely was strong.

What seeks its ruin

must first have risen;

what seeks to take

has surely given.

This is called the small dark light:

the soft, the weak prevail

over the hard, the strong.

Fish could stay underwater:

the real means of rule

should be kept dark.

*

37. Over all

The Way never does anything,

and everything gets done.

If those in power could hold to the Way,

the ten thousand things

would look after themselves.

If even so they tried to act,

I'd quiet them with the nameless,

the natural.

In the unnamed, in the unshaped,

is not wanting.

In not wanting is stillness.

In stillness all under heaven rests.

-- End of Book 1.

Translated by Ursula K. Le Guin