Thursday, June 6, 2013

Bit by Bit - Chapter 15, Part 2

Trey Smith

But to attain loftiness without constraining the will; to achieve moral training without benevolence and righteousness, good order without accomplishments and fame, leisure without rivers and seas, long life without Induction; to lose everything and yet possess everything, at ease in the illimitable, where all good things come to attend - this is the Way of Heaven and earth, the Virtue of the sage. So it is said, Limpidity, silence, emptiness, inaction - these are the level of Heaven and earth, the substance of the Way and its Virtue. So it is said, The sage rests; with rest comes peaceful ease, with peaceful ease comes limpidity, and where there is ease and limpidity, care and worry cannot get at him, noxious airs cannot assault him. Therefore his Virtue is complete and his spirit unimpaired.
~ Burton Watson translation ~
I don't really want to move from my home in South Bend, but that is the direction the flow of my life is taking me. Initially, I sort of tried to resist the current, but I quickly realized the pointlessness. All my efforts created stress and anxiety. It made me miserable.

Yes, there remains some anxiety about not knowing where we will land or how it might go, but there is far less tension by deciding to float freely wherever the current takes us.

To view the Index page for this series, go here.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Comments are unmoderated, so you can write whatever you want.