Granted a shattering glimpse of crystalline quiet early,
I came to understand it late.
Finding no one to explain the Unexplainable,
I kept a different kind of quiet;
drifted along some usual ways –
school, jobs, career, a run in public life.
Now and then, in a seeming desert wander, would peace descend –
alleviating for a while the dis-satisfaction of dis-ease.
These days I dwell inside my cottage in a large and fertile plain.
Through my doors a river runs. I do not interfere.
Without reason I study poetic lines revealing Way;
living unfolding within a gift of ease.
No longer concerned with place in the world,
time relaxes, days fill with quiet mystery.
Everyday life unburdened, cooking, once a chore,
loses its tedium. I cook and eat at home.
In the garden a sapling soaks after planting.
I sit in the radiance of things as they are.
If leaders could grasp this,
all things would transform themselves.
Transformed, old desires would release their hold
through a simplicity without name.
Uninvolved with new desires…peace.
Do you think that you can take the world in hand and improve it?
I do not believe it can be done.
The world is Tao’s own vessel.
You cannot control it.
If you try to change it, you will ruin it.
If you try to cling to it, you will lose it.
So sometimes things move forward, and sometimes not;
Sometimes breathing is hard, and sometimes easy;
Sometimes we find strength, and sometimes weakness;
Sometimes we are up, and sometimes down.
Therefore the sage avoids extremes, excesses, arrogance.