Book 3

Ta-Wan

Words don't explain it, so don't get hung up on words.

Contentedness is where your place and your mind's ideas of where it wishes to be are the same. Happiness and sadness are inseparable. Joined as the night and day skies.

Wishing to be anywhere else but where you are is the greatest conflict one can have. Like a stomach who dislikes digesting, you are left sick inside. Who could describe a greater battle, enemies coming closer, than a mind and body in dispute.

What is that before your eyes other than the past? There is nothing you can catch in your eye that has not already occurred. Nothing your senses touch that is new. Witnessing that which is already the case what power does the mind believe it wields? This seems like the deciduous tree looking to un-drop leaves.

The most learned people can speak on the same subject and convince audiences of different interpretations. Seasons flow on. Ideas change. Only a fool would see their whole life as bad due to one fleeting moment. There is change and so, as a bird does not pay attention when crossing borders, don't attach to labels. As the tail of the snake, don't claim you know where you are going. As the tree, don't claim you chose to be where you are.

Here you are. No choice you made could have been otherwise. When things are good, then the bad that came before is of just as much importance as the so-called good. Labels applied to what is the only case. You can't be in two places, you can only be where you are. The only work to be done is realising the immovable truth of this. When mind accepts where body is then unity is felt. Contented bliss.

You can check out Ta-Wan's other musings here.