無 ⇔ 有

Absence, the highest form of presence.

— James Joyce

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man

1914

Stephen Dedalus

Embraced by the Emptiness

Once out of the maze

Born Twice

I — Presently — 

become the Absence

that danced me — inside out —

invisibly, 

as I tripped

again and again,

along the trip

in the allotted strip

with a versatile spin

La Danse du Serpent, Agapit Stevens, 1903

太極拳雙鞭

Double Whip

Being danced

太極拳式

The rooted foot that connects us to the earth is constantly changing,

while the waist (下丹田) is directing the movement,

subtle circular expressions are unfolding out to the extremities

and all the while, from above, a visual panorama influx is being received.

Any focused attention revealing one of these aspects will conceal all the others.

To bring them all into presence the particulars must be forgotten 

and we must let us being danced by the absence, from within.

道德經 第十四章

"Diamond Pattern Entrelac"

Score Fourteenth

之不見，

名曰夷；

聽之不聞，

名曰希；

搏之不得，

名曰微。

此三者不可致詰，故混而為一。

其上不皦，其下不昧。

繩繩不可名，復歸於無物。

是謂無狀之狀，無物之象，是謂惚恍。

迎之不見其首，隨之不見其後。

執古之道，以御今之有。

能知古始，是謂道紀。

You can't see the invisible.

You can't name the fugitive.

You can't hear what can't be heard.

You can't grasp what you can't touch.

Now can you?

You can't avoid these qualities, but you can't comprehend them, either.

They make a universe.

Tonight the sky is dark and the earth glows as with moonlight.

A cord stretches from it to it and returns and returns.

What is the substance of emptiness, the form of the shapeless?

Confront it and its face evades you.

Follow it and its back disappears.

But still, the ancients moved with 道 into presence.

Stay connected to the origin.

That's 道 cord.

—  老子， Waterway: a new translation of the 道德經 (chapter 14)

and introducing 無為經 the Wu Wei Ching (Kindle Locations 175-184).

crispy press. Kindle Edition.

A "Laisser-Faire Entrelac"

無為法 असंस्कृत-धर्माणी asaṃskṛtā-dharmāḥ