some excerpts from lao-tzu

the ancient masters looked ordinary

but their wisdom was profound

they didn't deviate from the truth

the clever couldn't persuade them

the beautiful couldn't seduce them

the rich couldn't corrupt them

they considered life and death

to be insignificant matters

unhindered, their minds could soar

to the edges of the unknown,

beyond time and space, and plunge

past the beginning and the end

they could take the most menial positions

and find contentment in their work

the ancient masters

slept without dreaming

woke without concerns

their food was spare and simple

their breath went deep

they didn't hold on to life

they faced death free of concepts

emerging without desire

going back without resistance

they didn't trouble their minds

searching for what their end was

they received life as a gift

and handed it back gratefully

there was no limit to their freedom

the sage dreams, but he knows it to be a dream in the same way as he knows the waking state to be a dream. established in the state of supreme reality, he detachedly witnesses the three other states, waking dreaming and dreamless sleep, as pictures superimposed onto it. for the sage all three states are equally unreal. most people are unable to comprehend this, because for them the standard of reality is the waking state. whereas for the sage the standard is reality itself

When a drunk falls from a wagon

he won't be killed, no matter

how fast the wagon is moving

his body is like other men's

but the way he falls is different

life and death mean nothing to him

thus fear can't enter his heart

he meets all circumstances

like an infant, without a thought

unconscious that he is falling

he falls softly, and his bones

bend like the branches of a tree

the mature person is like a good archer

when he misses the bull's eye

he turns around and seeks

the reason for his failure in himself

you can't talk about the ocean

with a frog who lives in a well

he is bounded by the space he inhabits

you can't talk about ice

with an insect who was born in June

its life is bounded by a single season

you can't talk about the Tao

with a person who thinks he knows something

he is bounded by his own beliefs