Trey Smith
"If that is so," said the Lord of the River, "then what is there valuable about the Way?"While there are no easy answers to life, life itself IS easy. We don't ask to be blessed with it, yet here we are. We aren't alive because we somehow willed it -- we were dropped into its lap!
Jo of the North Sea said, "He who understands the Way is certain to have command of basic principles. He who has command of basic principles is certain to know how to deal with circumstances. And, he who knows how to deal with circumstances will not allow things to do him harm. When a man has perfect virtue, fire cannot burn him, water cannot drown him, cold and heat cannot afflict him, birds and beasts cannot injure him. I do not say that he makes light of these things. I mean that he distinguishes between safety and danger, contents himself with fortune or misfortune, and is cautious in his comings and goings. Therefore nothing can harm him.
"Hence it is said: the Heavenly is on the inside, the human is on the outside. Virtue resides in the Heavenly. Understand the actions of Heaven and man, base yourself upon Heaven, take vour stand in virtue , and then, although you hasten or hold back, bend or stretch, you may return to the essential and speak of the ultimate."
~ Burton Watson translation ~
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