Bit by Bit - Chapter 19, Part 3

Trey Smith

But why is abandoning the affairs of the world worth while, and why is forgetting life worth while? If you abandon the affairs of the world, your body will be without toil. If you forget life, your vitality will be unimpaired. With your body complete and your vitality made whole again, you may become one with Heaven. Heaven and earth are the father and mother of the ten thousand things. They join to become a body; they part to become a beginning. When the body and vitality are without flaw, this is called being able to shift. Vitality added to vitality, you return to become the Helper of Heaven.
~ Burton Watson translation ~

For me, it's not so much that we need to abandon everything -- we wouldn't survive very long doing THAT. It's more than we need to abandon the world we've conjured up in our heads. The world controlled by our egoic self typically doesn't match up well with the reality that surrounds us.

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