Thoughts I've thunk while sippin' at a cup of tea and reading something provoking, often get dropped here for the benefit of humanity and my own hubris.
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On my shelf of favorite books is the Tao Te Ching, and one of my favorite chapters (or poems as I like to call them) is the one variously entitled, Returning to the Root.
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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.
In that knowledge is wisdom.
…
The body comes to its ending,
but there is nothing to fear.
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| Translator: Ursula LeGuin |
This poem was brought to my mind as I was looking at this picture that I took of my daughter, Flora and her great-grandmother, Anna. Here you can just see that cycle of life that has no beginning and no end. While each of us will die, life continues to flower, and so, there is really nothing but peace.
Maybe this is the reason why Taoism is considered the religion of old age... as the religion of acceptance. But not just of resignation, but of illumination that the world is not something to subdue and have dominion over, but to dance with and dance within.
© 2001-2005, Howard Abrams • Except where otherwise noted, all original content is licensed under a Creative Commons License (see details).
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