Just Ask Old Mr. Stone

05/12/23 • 30 min

Obstinate and mindless
Block of Stone,
Lying here
On this green moss,
Oblivious of rain and dew,
Immune to frost and snow.
How many times has this garden
Flourished and Decayed!
How often have these flowers and trees
Bloomed and Faded!
Just ask old Mr. Stone -
He remembers it all!
-Zheng Banqiao

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Relax Completely

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Let go of hundreds of years
and relax completely.
-Shitou Xiqian, from Song of the Grass Roof Hermitage

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All Things Will Transform Themselves

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After several unsuccessful attempts at receiving advice from Vast Obscure...
Generalissimo Cloud said, "It is a rare and difficult thing to meet with you, O Heaven! Please give me just one word!"
Vast Obscure said, "Ach! The nourishing of the mind! Just stay in the state of non-doing and all things will transform themselves. Drop your body away, vomit out your precise powers of hearing and vision, sink yourself into the forgetting of things, become vastly merged in fluidity and darkness, unleash your mind and release your spirit until you are left like a still and silent desert, like there is no soul in you. All things throng and flourish, but each returns to its root. Each returns to its root, and yet they do not know it! Mixed and blended, in chaos and confusion—as long as they live they are never separated from it! If they knew it, they would then be separated from it! They do not ask its name, they do not spy out its character: thus do all things generate themselves!"
-from Chapter 11: "Being There and Giving Room" in Zhuangzi: The Complete Works (Brook Ziporyn, trans)

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