Friday, February 18, 2022 (XVII) ䷐ 隨

上卦 ☱ (兌 duì) open = (澤) swamp. 下卦 ☳ (震 zhèn) shake = (雷) thunder, Marvellous Magnetism “The man who comes back through the Door in the Wall will never be quite the same as the man who went out. He will be wiser but less sure, happier but less self-satisfied, humbler in acknowledging his ignorance yet better equipped to understand the relationship of words to things, of systematic reasoning to 『玄之又玄，衆妙之門。』the unfathomable mystery which it tries, forever vainly, to comprehend” — Aldous Huxley, The Doors of Perception "Everywhere transience is plunging into the depths of Being... It is our task to imprint this temporary, perishable earth into ourselves, so deeply, so painfully and passionately, that its essence can rise again, invisible, inside of us. We are the bees of the invisible. We wildly collect the honey of the visible, to store it in the great golden hive of the invisible.” — Rainer Maria Rilke, writing to his Polish translator about writing the Duino Elegies "Know that the answer to every problem, to every question, is within yourself."   ECRL 2438-1 Door of Perception, Mati Klarwein

道德經

《道德經》第十六章

致虛極.

[To the Extreme Void]

守靜篤.

萬物並作.

吾以觀復.

夫物芸芸, 各復歸其根.

歸根曰靜.

是謂復命.

復命曰常.

知常曰明.

不知常, 妄作凶知常容.

容乃公.

公乃王.

王乃天.

天乃道.

道乃久.

沒身不殆.

道德經 Dao De Jing Chapter Sixteen — Ronald Hogan

16.

Keep your head clear.

Stay calm.

Watch

as everything happens around you.

Everything reverts

to its original state,

which was nothing.

And when something becomes nothing,

it gets right with 道.

If you don't understand that,

you're going to screw up

somewhere down the line.

If you figure it out,

you'll always know what to do.

If you get right with Tao,

you won't be afraid to die,

because you know you will.

16

"Attain to the goal of absolute vacuity;

Keep to the state of perfect peace.

All things come into existence,

And thence we see them return.

Look at the things that have been flourishing;

Each goes back to its origin.

Going back to the origin is called peace;

It means a reversion to destiny.

Reversion to destiny is called eternity.

He who knows eternity is called enlightened.

He who does not know eternity is rushing blindly into miseries.

Knowing eternity he is all-embracing.

Being all-embracing he can attain magnanimity.

Being magnanimous he can attain omnipresence.

Being omnipresent he can attain supremacy.

Being supreme he can attain Tao.

He who attains Tao is everlasting.

Though his body may decay he never perishes."

— Translated by 朱大高 Ch'u Ta-Kao, 1904, Chapter 16

16

Push far enough towards the Void,

Hold fast enough to Quietness,

And of the ten thousand things none but can be worked on by you.

I have beheld them, whither they go back.

See, all things howsoever they flourish

Return to the root from which they grew.

This return to the root is called Quietness;

Quietness is called submission to Fate;

What has submitted to Fate has become part of the always so.

To know the always-so is to be Illumined;

Not to know it, means to go blindly to disaster.

He who knows the always-so has room in him for everything;

He who has room in him for everything is without prejudice.

To be without prejudice is to be kingly;

To be kingly is to be of heaven;

To be of heaven is to be in Tao.

Tao is forever and he that possess it,

Though his body ceases, is not destroyed.

— Translated by Arthur Waley, 1934

The Way and its Power: A Study of the Tao Te Ching and its Place in Chinese Thought, 1934