Tao Te Ching – Lao Tzu – Chapter 20

Give up learning, and put an end to your troubles.


Is there a difference between yes and no?
Is there a difference between good and evil?
Must I fear what others fear? What nonsense!
Other people are contented, enjoying the sacrificial feast of the ox.
In spring some go to the park, and climb the terrace,
But I alone am drifting not knowing where I am.
Like a new-born babe before it learns to smile,
I am alone, without a place to go.

Other have more than they need, but I alone have nothing.
I am a fool. Oh, yes! I am confused.
Other men are clear and bright,
But I alone am dim and weak.
Other men are sharp and clever,
But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea.
Without direction, like the restless wind.

Everyone else is busy,
But I alone am aimless and depressed.
I am different.
I am nourished by the great mother.

(translation by Gia-fu Feng and Jane English)

Every thing contains a portions of all things…

Every thing contains a portions of all things, but Consciousness is infinite, free, alone, and mixed with nothing else. Consciousness is pure and sublime. It has knowledge of everything. It controls all life, great and small. It governs the spinning wheel of separateness that divides things off one from the other. It knows all that is, and things that are not, and things that have been, and things that shall be. Consciousness arranges all things as they are, including the rotating stars, the sun, the moon, the air, and the ether.

Anaxagoras

Of course I’ll hurt you Of course you’ll…

Of course I’ll hurt you. Of course you’ll hurt me. Of course we will hurt each other. But this is the very condition of existence. To become spring, means accepting the risk of winter. To become presence, means accepting the risk of absence.

-Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince