Der Taoismus ist ursprünglich aus unterschiedlichen Traditionssträngen entstanden. Die Grundlagen legten die Schamanen und die Meister der Techniken (des Himmels) sie waren für Geisterbeschwörungen,praktizierten Exzorzismus und Kontaktaufnahme zu den Göttern und Verstorbenen zuständig. Durch Lao-tse, der c.a. spätes 4. bis frühes 3.Jh. v. Chr. gelebt hatte, wurde der Taoismus populär. Später in der Ming- und Tangdynastie wurde der Taoismus zur Volksreligion. Aus der Ming- und Tangdynastie gibt es auch am meisten Aufzeichnungen, was den Taoismus angeht. Es war die Blütezeit des Taoismus und das Zentrum der taoistischen Aktivitäten. Um ca. 180 n. Chr. wurde Lao-tse, nachdem er einige Male als Ratgeber auf die Erde zurückgekehrt war als Gott verehrt. Um das Jahr 1369 n. Chr. wurde die drei Denkweisen ( Taoismus,Buddhismus und Konfuzianismus) zusammengeführt. Zu dieser Zeit wurden auch erstmals große Organisationen von Menschen gegründet, die sich dem Taoismus angliederten. Der Taoismus hat weltweit schätzungsweise 400 Millionen Anhänger, die genaue Anzahl ist aufgrund der verschienden Ausprägungsformen und der unklaren Abgrenzung zu anderen Religionen nur schwierig zu erfassen.
Der Taoismus entstand in der Zeit vom 6. - 4. Jahrhundert v. Chr. in China, die legendenumwobene Gründergestalt ist Lao-Tse. Ihm wird das grundlegende Werk Tao Te King (Buch vom Dao und vom De, Buch vom Weltgesetz und seinem Wirken) zugeschrieben.

Das zweite Hauptbuch des Taoismus ist das Nan Hua Chen Ching (das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland) in dem Dschuang Dsi (365 - 290 v. Chr) das Wesen des Taoismus in Parabeln und Anekdoten erläutert.



Als der Buddhismus im 5. Jahrhundert nach China kam (der Legende nach durch Bodhidharma) entwickelte sich unter starkem Einfluss des Taoismus der Chan-Buddhismus (?), der dann später in Japan zum Zen wurde.
Im chinesischen Volk waren lange Zeit taoistische Richtungen mit weniger philosophischem als vielmehr alchemistischem und magischem Charakter recht verbreitet, wie z.B. die Ch'üan Chen Schule (Schule der vollkommenen Verwirklichung) im 13. Jahrhundert nach Christus. Dieser Volkstaoismus verbreitete sich bis in die heutige Zeit in weiten Teilen Asiens, u.a. in Indien, und wurde immer mehr zu einer eher undurchsichtigen Religion mit vielen verschiedenen Geistern und Zauberriten. Es gab diverse gegenseitige Beeinflussungen mit dem Buddhismus und Konfuzianismus, sowie verschiedenen lokalen Kulten.

Ein Abkömmling der magischen Linie des Taoismus ist das Feng Shui.

Die philosophische Richtung des Taoismus hat auch im Westen eine gewisse Beachtung und Anhängerschaft gefunden, u.a. da sie mit der naturwissenschaftlichen Weltsicht gut vereinbar scheint. (Logiker Raymond N. Smullyan). Berühmte Anhänger und Kenner des Taoismus waren z.B. Hermann Hesse, Paul Ernst und Elias Canetti.

Dao als das zentrale Element des Taoismus wird oft wörtlich-konkret als "Weg" oder "Straße" übersetzt. Besser ist es jedoch, das Dao als eine unübersetzbare Definition eines umfassenden Weltprinzips zu verstehen, das dem Menschen rein rational nicht zugänglich ist. Der Mensch soll dieses Prinzip möglichst wenig durch bewusstes Handeln und Streben stören, sondern in mystisch-intuitiver Weise im Einklang mit diesem Gesetz leben. Dabei spielt der Grundsatz des "Handelns durch Nichthandeln" (wei wu wei) eine entscheidende Rolle. Der Begriff des "Nichthandelns" heißt aber nicht automatisch, dass gar nichts getan werden soll. Es bedeutet vielmehr, nicht gegen das Dao, also das Weltprinzip zu handeln.

Der zweite Teil des Tao-Te-King handelt von dem sogenannten De (Wesen oder auch Tugend). Vereinfacht könnte man sagen, das De ist das, wodurch das Dao erreicht wird.

Sowohl der Ausdruck Dao als auch das wu wei finden sich auch im Konfuzianismus. Dort steht jedoch Dao eher für den moralisch richtigen Weg, und der Grundsatz des Nicht-Handelns wird primär auf das Verhalten des Herrschers bezogen: So wird in den Gesprächen des Konfuzius (Lunyu, II, 1) der Herrscher mit dem Polarstern verglichen, um den sich alle übrigen Sterne zu drehen scheinen. Das Ideal des Herrschens besteht darin, nicht aktiv einzugreifen, sondern vor allem durch das Vorbild zu wirken.

Taoismus und Konfuzianismus gelten als Antipoden, wobei der Gegensatz erst mit den Jahren deutlicher herausgearbeitet wurde. Taoisten kritisieren besonders die strengen Riten des Konfuzianismus. In einigen taoistischen Gleichnissen, deren Echtheit im Konfuzianismus aber bezweifelt wird, erkennt Konfuzius die Überlegenheit des Laotse an. "Konfuzius sprach:'Ich habe diesmal wirklich einen Drachen gesehen. ... Sprachlos stand ich mit offenem Mund daneben. Wie hätte ich es da anfangen sollen, den Laotse zurechtzuweisen?' " (Dschuang Dsi " Das wahre Buch vom südlichen Blütenland", Eugen Diederichs Verlag 1992)

A pagan is a natural human being.
He needs no religion.
It has not any utility, it will be just useless junk.
There is nowhere to go, nothing to achieve.
Every religious person is a religionless man.
Only those who are religionless in the sense that they don't need religion, are fulfilled. If you need religion something is wrong with you.
If you need God something is really very very wrong with you; otherwise what are you going to do with God? Have you ever thought that if by chance you meet God ....
Tell me, what will you do if you by chance meet God? What is your next program? You will look silly, God will look silly; and once you have found God then your life will be pointless. That's why nobody ever finds God. Life remains a searching, a seeking.
God is like the horizon: it seems to be just there, so close; it is meeting the earth, the sky is meeting the earth. You go on and on and on, but the distance between you and the horizon remains exactly the same. As you move, the horizon goes on moving away from you. The horizon does not exist, it only appears to.
And remember, appearance is not reality. The sky and the earth meet nowhere. It is an illusion.
God does not exist. But the hungry, starving, unfulfilled, discontented human mind wants something there -- close enough so that you can believe in it; and yet, however, whatever way you try to reach it, the distance remains the same.
"God" is as distant from Judas as it is from Jesus, equally distant -- because it is a horizon. It doesn't matter if you are a Judas or a Jesus: "God" is as far away from the greatest criminal of the world as it is from the greatest saint of the world. It doesn't matter because it doesn't exist, it is simply a horizon point. That horizon point is called religion.
You need it if you are not fulfilled here and now.
If you are fulfilled here and now, who bothers about the horizon?
Religion is the need of the sick mind -- a pagan is not sick.
Religion is not his need, but religion is his gift to existence.
And only a man who does not need religion can give. If you yourself are in need, how can you give it?

THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES ARE ONE SURF: WHERE IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RIVER AND ITS WAVES?
WHEN THE WAVE RISES, IT IS THE WATER; AND WHEN IT FALLS, IT IS THE SAME WATER AGAIN. TELL ME, WHERE IS THE DISTINCTION?
BECAUSE IT HAS BEEN NAMED AS WAVE, SHALL IT NO LONGER BE CONSIDERED AS WATER?

WITHIN THE ABSOLUTE, THE WORLDS ARE BEING TOLD LIKE BEADS.
LOOK UPON THAT ROSARY WITH THE EYES OF WISDOM.

THE TRUTH IS KNOWN AND YET NOT KNOWN -- known in a sense and not known in another -- known because we are part of it, but not known because we are not separate from it. To know something, the knower has to be separate; and yet again, to know something really, how can you know it if you are separate? This is the basic problem that faces the seeker of truth. We are one with it, there is no space between us and the truth, so we cannot become the knower. We cannot separate the known from the knower -- there is no way to separate -- and knowledge exists only when the knower and known are separate.
Knowledge is a bridge between the object and the subject. If they are not separate, the bridge cannot exist. So truth is not known in the ordinary sense, cannot be known in the ordinary sense.
Yet there is a knowing of sorts -- a totally different type of knowing, of a totally different quality. The knowing is more like love than knowledge. You know a woman or a man when you are deep in love. When your boundaries meet and mingle and merge, when you are no longer separate, when you cannot say where you end and where your woman starts, when there are no fences and no defenses, when simply you are overlapping, overflowing into each other -- the division has disappeared and you have become indivisible -- there is a sort of knowing: you know. Before it, all that you used to think of as knowledge was just illusory.
But can you say now that you know? Now there is no one separate who can claim to be the knower. This is the problem. Truth is known, but in such a way that you cannot claim knowledge. Truth is known in such a way that by knowing it the mystery does not disappear; in fact it becomes very, very deep, infinitely deep, ultimately deep. By knowing the truth, nothing is solved. In fact for the first time you are facing the insoluble. This is the paradox, the dilemma.

Tao is the open sky of insecurity. It is vastness, it is uncharted ocean. The journey is from one unknown to another unknown. There is nothing that can be known. Knowledge, the very idea of knowledge, is part of human stupidity. Life is such a mystery it cannot be known. And if it cannot be known how can it be taught? And if it cannot be taught, what is the point of being a master and a disciple?
All is divine. Trees are gods, so are animals, so is everything, even rocks!
God is fast asleep in the rocks. He has become a little alert in the trees, a little more alert in the animals, a little more alert in you. In a Buddha he has come perfectly to absolute alertness. But the difference is not of quality, the difference is only of quantity. And if you are this much aware, you can become that much aware too.
There is nothing to learn. Truth is a given fact. Whatsoever you learn will be lies. Truth need not be learned. Truth has not to be invented but only discovered, or more right will be to say it has only to be rediscovered.
And the word learning is dangerous. Learning is accumulating information. The more you accumulate information the deeper your reality goes into the unconscious. You become burdened, you become too top-heavy. Your head starts clamoring with knowledge, becomes very noisy, and then you cannot hear the still small voice of your heart. That silence is lost in the noise of knowledge.
That's why even sinners achieve but scholars miss -- because the sinner can be humble but the scholar cannot be humble. The sinner can cry and weep, but the scholar knows. He is adamant in his knowledge, he is egoistic in his knowledge. He is hard, he cannot melt. He is not open, he is closed. All his windows and doors are blocked by his knowledge, his scriptures that he has accumulated.
To come to truth means unlearning rather than learning. You have to unlearn that which you have known. It is not a becoming but an unbecoming, it is not a learning but an unlearning. To unlearn is the way. If you can unbecome then you will be capable of becoming. If you are capable of unlearning, if you can drop all knowledge utterly, unconditionally, without any clinging, you will become innocent -- and that innocence brings you home.

Shri Aurobindo was educated in England. He belonged to a rich family and was going to become an ICS, a member of the Indian civil service, which was the topmost bureaucracy in India, created by the Britishers. To be an ICS one had to pass many examinations in England, and naturally it was very difficult for Indians to pass those examinations. The examinations were such that Indians were not accustomed to them.
For example, Aurobindo failed only in one subject -- horse riding. Indians are not interested in horseriding; English people are. But Indians are not interested at all in horse riding, nobody thinks it of some great value; in fact Jainas prohibit it because to ride on a horse is to be violent. Who are you to ride on the horse? If horses start riding on you would you like the idea? Jainas are averse to it. And in India nobody is interested the way Britishers are interested in horse riding.
So of course Aurobindo was not a good horse rider compared with British students, but in all other subjects he passed. One wonders what an ICS officer has to do with horse riding, but you don't know the ways of imperialism. The ICS officer had a certain purpose for horse riding. In India, the moment you saw a white man dressed in army uniform with a gun on a beautiful horse... that was the symbol of imperialism and its power.
Aurobindo was very shocked because he came back having failed, and to be an ICS was his ambition. Someone with an inferiority complex always has great ambitions; the inferiority complex is the base of all ambition. Now, to be an ICS officer was the greatest ambition any Indian could have in the British regime because that was the topmost position you could reach; more than that was not available to Indians. And rarely, out of thousands of ICS officers, one Indian might succeed in reaching it, so it was really something superior.
Aurobindo came back frustrated, with great anger, jealousy, rage; and he joined the Indian National Congress -- the party that was trying to throw the British Empire. Just look at the facts. He had gone to join the British Empire, and if only he had succeeded in horse riding he would have been a supporter of the British Empire; he would have been killing these people whom he was now joining. Now he wanted to destroy the British Empire. Can you see people's minds, how they work?
And he was not a non-violent revolutionary, no. He did not believe in Gandhi, he was not a follower of Gandhi. He was a believer in violence: he wanted the British people to be killed, burned, destroyed. He was trying to make bombs and he was caught redhanded creating bombs and he suffered a few years in jail.
It is very interesting to look into people's lives. If you have an unprejudiced mind then strange facts start coming up. When Aurobindo was in jail he suddenly became a religious man. From being thrown out -- the ambition that he was trying to fulfill, frustrated -- he moved to the opposite extreme: he wanted to take revenge, but now in the name of revolution. Then, when he was put into jail, he saw the whole thing, that it is not so easy to overthrow this great empire by simply creating hand bombs; it is just befooling yourself You may kill one person or two persons or you may destroy one bridge, but that is not going to destroy the empire; it is not possible. The empire has tremendous power.
Then how to fulfill the ambition? He had seen he could not succeed in Britain in becoming an ICS officer; he had seen that he could not become the great leader of the Indian revolution. He turned to religion. He could become a great saint; at least nobody could prevent him doing that. That is the cheapest way in the whole world. Who can prevent you? There is no competition either.
Aurobindo became a religious person. He started writing a commentary on the SHRIMAD BHAGAVAD GITA in jail. When he was released, the first thing he did was to escape from the British Empire. Pondicherry was not part of British India; it was a small place under the French empire. It is part of India -- now it is part of India -- but three hundred years ago, when all European powers were struggling to capture India, Britain succeeded in capturing the whole of India. France could only succeed in capturing a small place, Pondicherry, and Spain could succeed in having only one small place, Goa, and two small islands, Daman and Diu.
Why did Aurobindo escape to Pondicherry? It was just close to Bengal. He was a coward; now he was afraid to face his revolutionary friends. He could not say to them that now he was no longer a revolutionary, that he wanted to become a saint -- which is the safest way to fulfill your ambition to become respectable, honorable and great. In Pondicherry he created his ashram.
He was immensely interested in the idea of the superman. In fact he made it his life's ambition. He said, "I am going to bring the superman into myself. The superman will descend from heaven into my body, so I am trying to purify my body so that the superman will descend."
For thirty years he remained in a closed house, and his followers believed that he was purifying his body. Now, if you look at his literature you can see perfectly well that for all those thirty years he was continually writing, because that literature is not spoken, it is written. And the volume of literature is so big that I suspect he had no time left to purify his body. And what purification? -- the body is pure. What can you do with it? What is wrong with the body? For anything that is wrong you need medical science to help you. In a closed room how are you going to purify your body?
He became fatter and fatter, that's all. He had been a very lean and thin young man, but just reading and writing, reading and writing.... And his writing is just the worst possible. One sentence will continue for almost the whole page. You will forget about the beginning of the sentence by the time you have reached the end. By the end of the page you will have to go back again to the beginning to see what words the sentence had started with.
Aurobindo's books are unreadable, pedantic, verbose. He uses big words because he thinks the bigger the word, the more unused it is by people, the more mystified they will be. And it happened -- people were mystified. People are very strange: they get impressed by things which they cannot understand. If they can understand, they don't get impressed. Simple is their logic: "If I can understand it there is nothing in it." Unless they feel "I cannot understand it," they cannot believe that something higher, something of the beyond, is there. The way he has written is just to mystify. There is no need to write one paragraph or one page as one sentence. It is simply ridiculous if you want your word to reach to people. But no, he wanted to mystify.
In those books there is nothing. You dig up a whole mountain and you don't find even a rat! But they are big volumes, one thousand pages; and there are big words. And he was clever enough to make and create big words, for example, "supramental." And he would create categories....
For the superman to arrive, first you have to create the state of supramental, and for that you have to purify your body. And he declared that he was going to be immortal physically. Up to now Mahavira, Buddha, Krishna, Christ, Mohammed -- they have all said that the soul is eternal. Aurobindo said, "I am going to prove that only an eternal body can contain an eternal soul. My body is going to live forever, it is immortal."
Now this kind of thing is simple nonsense. But there is one thing good about it, about such statements; you can never prove such statements wrong, because if the man dies, to whom are you going to prove he is wrong? And if he lives, of course he is immortal. This is the trick behind the statement, "I am going to be immortal. I have purified my body, and the superman is descending, slowly, slowly coming into this body. This body is going to be immortal, and then I will teach my disciples to be immortal."
Hundreds of people, hoping to be immortal physically, followed Shri Aurobindo their whole life.
The body cannot be immortal, it is made of mortal things. Perhaps one can live a little longer, but to live eternally...! You can see the body is continually changing: the child is becoming a young man, the young man is becoming old, the old man is becoming older. Death does not come suddenly, it is coming from the very day you were born. Somebody who says his body is going to be immortal has to prove that his body has stopped changing.
Aurobindo used to see his disciples only one time a year, and that too was simply darshan. He would not talk, he would not answer; he would simply sit there and people would pass by him in a line -- just for a moment you could see him.
The woman who was in charge of the ashram was called "the Mother." People have completely forgotten her name, they have forgotten even her profession. She was a film actress who just fell in love with Shri Aurobindo. She dropped her husband and became a disciple... because the idea of physical immortality will appeal to women more than to men, obviously.
Women are more physical, more grounded, and have more of a sense of their body. Women don't believe much in the soul, because they cannot see any soul in the mirror. What they cannot see in the mirror is just stupid men's idea. And all women know that these men all go on playing with words and philosophy and religion. The woman is not interested in these things. She is more interested in the gossip, in juicy things; what is happening in the neighborhood, who has purchased a new car and who has purchased new clothes and who has made a new house.
They are not worried about God at all. It is not their concern. If they become concerned it is because of men. Because men are continually worried about God and soul and heaven and hell, the woman thinks, "perhaps there is something in it; and if so many men are interested in it, who knows? It is better at least to keep quiet about it, not to say anything." But I know every woman feels that all this is simply jargon.
This French actress became interested in the idea of physical immortality. She was a powerful woman and really capable of organizing, so Aurobindo had a good organizer at hand -- he could withdraw. He wanted his whole time to write. He was trying to create the whole philosophy of the superman: all the stages, methodologies to purify the body and the mind, what stages you will reach, what lights you will see and what colors will appear at what stage. If you read him you will think, "perhaps this man is talking sense, because he talks like somebody talking about geography. Everything on the map he can show you."
But looking at his books, he was a good linguist and knew how to play with words and language. For thirty years he was in isolation. Nothing was being purified; it was just that he needed time to study and to write. And his voluminous literature is proof enough -- nobody could produce that much literature if he were not continually working at least twelve or fourteen hours a day. The sheer volume is proof enough.
When you see a person every day you cannot detect that he is becoming older. But if you see him after a gap of one year you can immediately see how much change has happened, how much his hair has gone grey, how much his face has wrinkled, how much older he is looking.
So if he cannot prevent old age, then be certain that he cannot prevent death, because old age is just a preparation for death. And that's what happened: one day Aurobindo died. When he died it was a great shock to his disciples who lived there in his ashram and to his followers who were all around the earth, because who does not want to be physically immortal?
There are people in America, at least ten of them, whose dead bodies are preserved -- those bodies belong to multi-millionaires -- in the hope that within the coming of ten to fifteen years, science will be able to revive a dead man. So those people have put all their money in a trust -- that their bodies should be preserved exactly as they were when they died. So if, after ten or fifteen years, science becomes capable of reviving the body, their bodies will be revived.
Do you see man's ambitions, his poverty, his inferiority, his fear of death, his lust for life?
Even after death they are hoping...! And millions of dollars are being wasted on their bodies because they have a trust; it is their money. They are being preserved, frozen, completely frozen. And even if after fifteen years they come back, what are they going to do? They won't see anybody around whom they had left. Their wives may have gone, their children may have died. And who will want them -- even if the children are there? Who would like to have them back? Just think: your father comes after fifteen years of being a ghost; one day he suddenly comes home. You may die just with the shock of seeing your father standing before you.
And a fifteen-year gap.... People are talking about generation gaps -- have you thought about the gap between dead and the living? If after fifteen years a person comes back to life, he will not find anything recognizable, everything will be different. Perhaps he will not find the same world at all; perhaps the third world war will have happened and he may wake up to start the whole game again... to go in search... where is Eve? And if by chance he finds some Eve, then they both will have to think twice before they take the jump: should we start that whole thing again? If they have any intelligence they won't because once was enough -- and what happened to it!
But people are interested in immortality. Aurobindo exploited the idea of the superman; and physical immortality was his contribution to the idea of the superman. Nietzsche was not thinking of that; neither Bernard Shaw was thinking of that nor was Adolf Hitler. But Aurobindo, being an Indian, contributed to the idea. He was not very original because the immortality of the soul has always been talked about. He simply transferred it to the body: immortality of the body.
When he died, for three days they kept it a secret because the Mother, the organizer of the ashram, said, "He cannot die, that is impossible. It must be a certain stage when he is getting out of the body, and the superman is getting into the body -- just the interim stage, the interval.
"Of course if somebody is getting out of a house he has to take his luggage and furniture and mattresses; and so many things are there to get out of the house. Then the other will bring his own mattresses, his own furniture. And who knows what kinds of things that superman needs? He will bring his own paraphernalia. So it is just an interval." And people are so foolish. What kind of humanity have we got that they believed in this? -- that it was an interval.
The body was kept in secret, and they were praying and waiting for superman to descend. They were rejoicing because they were thinking, "Now it is happening" -- and all that was happening was that the body was deteriorating; it started stinking. Then the Mother became afraid that this is going to.... So the Mother said, "It seems it will take a longer time for the superman to descend, so we have to preserve the body inside a marble grave." You will not believe it: there are still people in Aurobindo's ashram who are waiting, thinking that one day he will knock inside the grave and say, "Now please open up: and superman has arrived."
The man died; then the Mother started pretending -- the same role -- that her body has become immortal. Of course she lived long, almost a century, but if you had seen her face before she died, you would have thought this face could only be of a ghost: she was just a skeleton, with wrinkled skin. You could count, even from a photograph, how many bones there were in her neck, and how many blood vessels in her neck were collapsing. There was no need for any X-ray, just seeing her was enough. You could have seen everything that was in her -- nothing was left.
People started believing that she was immortal, the same people who had been seeing Aurobindo dying. then she died, and again the same stupidity: three days' interval, then the stinking body, then again another Grave -- and waiting. And people are still waiting.
The idea of superman is basically rooted in your feeling of inferiority, of fear, of death. But the new nan has nothing to do with all this.
The new man is the very ordinary man:
Nothing special, nothing superior, supramental.
The new man is the first man who recognizes that it is enough to be human.
There is no need to be a superman.
There is no need to become gods and goddesses
It is so fulfilling just to be an ordinary human being.

There is nothing above human consciousness.
Everything that is possible is within you.
You are not to become special, superior.
You have to become absolutely simple, ordinary just nobodies.

On Tolerance
There has been such a thing as letting mankind alone and tolerance; there has never been such a thing as governing mankind. Letting alone Springs from the fear lest men's natural dispositions be perverted and tolerance springs from the fear lest their character be corrupted. But if their natural dispositions be not perverted, nor their character corrupted, what need is there left for government?
Of old, when Yao governed the empire, he made the people live happily; consequently the people struggled to be happy and became restless. When Chieh governed the empire he made the people live miserably; consequently the people regarded life as a burden and were discontented. Restlessness and discontent are subversive of virtue; and without virtue there has never been such a thing as stability.

When man rejoices greatly, he gravitates towards yang (the positive pole). When he is in great anger, he gravitates towards yin (the negative pole). If the equilibrium of positive and negative is disturbed, the four seasons are upset, and the balance of heat and cold is destroyed, man himself suffers physically thereby. It causes men to rejoice and sorrow inordinately, to live disorderly lives, to be vexed in their thoughts, and to lose their balance and form of conduct. When that happens, then the whole world seethes with revolt and discontent, and we have such men as Robber Cheh, Tseng, and Shih. Offer the entire world as rewards for the good or threaten the wicked with the dire punishments of the entire world, and it is still insufficient (to reform them). Consequently, with the entire world, one cannot furnish sufficient inducements or deterrents to action. From the Three Dynasties downwards, the world has lived in a helter-skelter of promotions and punishments. What chance have the people left for living the even tenor of their lives?

Besides, love (over-refinement) of vision leads to debauchery in color; love of hearing leads to debauchery in sound; love of charity leads to confusion in virtue; love of duty leads to perversion of principles; love of ceremonies (li) leads to a common fashion for technical skill; love of music leads to common lewdness of thought; love of wisdom leads to a fashion for the arts; and love of knowledge leads to a fashion for criticism If the people are allowed to live out the even tenor of their lives, the above eight may or may not be; it matters not. But if the people are not allowed to live out the even tenor of their lives, then these eight cause discontent and contention and strife, and throw the world into chaos.

Yet the world worships and cherishes them. Indeed deep-seated is the mental chaos of the world. Is it merely a passing mistake that can be simply removed? Yet they observe fasts before their discussion, bend down on their knees to practise them, and sing and beat the drum and dance to celebrate them. What can I do about it?

Therefore, when a gentleman is unavoidably compelled to take charge of the government of the empire, there is nothing better than inaction (letting alone). By means of inaction only can he allow the people to live out the even tenor of their lives. Therefore he who values the world as his own self may then be entrusted with the government of the world and he who loves the world as his own self may then be entrusted with the care of the world.
Therefore if the gentleman can refrain from disturbing the internal economy of man, and from glorifying the powers of sight and hearing, he can sit still like a corpse or spring into action like a dragon, be silent as the deep or talk with the voice of thunder, the movements of his spirit calling forth the natural mechanism of Heaven. He can remain calm and leisurely doing nothing, while all things are brought to maturity and thrive. What need then would have I to set about governing the world?

Ts'ui Chu: asked Lao Tan, saying, "If the empire is not to be governed, how are men's hearts to be kept good?"

"Be careful," replied Lao Tan, "not to interfere with the natural goodness of the heart of man. Man's heart may be forced down or stirred up. In each case the issue is fatal. By gentleness, the hardest heart may be softened. But try to cut and polish it, and it will glow like fire or freeze like ice. In the twinkling of an eye it will pass beyond the limits of the Four Seas. In repose, it is profoundly still; in motion, it flies up to the sky. Like an unruly horse, it cannot be held in check. Such is the human heart."

Of old, the Yellow Emperor first interfered with the natural goodness of the heart of man, by means of charity and duty. In consequence, Yao and Shun wore the hair off their legs and the flesh off their arms in endeavoring to feed their people's bodies. They tortured the people's internal economy in order to conform to charity and duty. They exhausted the people's energies to live in accordance with the laws and statutes. Even then they did not succeed. Thereupon, Yao (had to) confine Huantou on Mount Ts'ung, exile the chiefs of the Three Miaos and their people into the Three Weis, and banish the Minister of Works to Yutu, which shows he had not succeeded. When it came to the times of the Three Kings, the empire was in a state of foment. Among the bad men were Chieh and Cheh; among the good were Tseng and Shih. By and by, the Confucianists and the Motseanists arose; and then came confusion between joy and anger, fraud between the simple and the cunning, recrimination between the virtuous and the evil-minded, slander between the honest and the liars, and the world order collapsed. Then the great virtue lost its unity, men's lives were frustrated. When there was a general rush for knowledge, the people's desires ever went beyond their possessions. The next thing was then to invent axes and saws, to kill by laws and statutes, to disfigure by chisels and awls. The empire seethed with discontent, the blame for which rests upon those who would interfere with the natural goodness of the heart of man.

In consequence, virtuous men sought refuge in mountain caves, while rulers of great states sat trembling in their ancestral halls. Then, when dead men lay about pillowed on each other's corpses, when cangued prisoners jostled each other in crowds and condemned criminals were seen everywhere, then the Confucianists and the Motseanists bustled about and rolled up their sleeves in the midst of gyves and fetters! Alas, they know not shame, nor what it is to blush!

Until I can say that the wisdom of Sages is not a fastener of cangues, and that charity of heart and duty to one's neighbor are not bolts for gyves, how should I know that Tseng and Shih were not the singing arrows (forerunners) of (the gangsters) Chieh and Cheh? Therefore it is said, "Abandon wisdom and discard knowledge, and the empire will be at peace."

The Yellow Emperor sat on the throne for nineteen years, and his laws obtained all over the empire. Hearing that Kuangch'engtse was living on Mount K'ungt'ung, he went there to see him, and said, "I am told that you are in possession of perfect Tao. May I ask what is the essence of this perfect Tao? I desire to obtain the essence of the universe to secure good harvests and feed my people. I should like also to control the yin and yang principles to fulfill the life of all living things."

"What you are asking about," replied Kuangch'engtse, "is merely the dregs of things. What you wish to control are the disintegrated factors thereof. Ever since the empire was governed by you, the clouds have rained before thickening, the foliage of trees has fallen before turning yellow, and the brightness of the sun and moon has increasingly paled. You have the shallowness of mind of a glib talker. How then are you fit to speak of perfect Tao?"

The Yellow Emperor withdrew. He resigned the Throne. He built himself a solitary hut, and sat upon white straw. For three months he remained in seclusion, and then went again to see Kuangch'engtse.

The latter was lying with his head towards the south. The Yellow Emperor approached from below upon his knees. Kowtowing twice upon the ground, he said, "I am told that you are in possession of perfect Tao. May I ask how to order one's life so that one may have long life?"

Kuangch'engtse jumped up with a start. "A good question indeed!" cried he. "Come, and I will speak to you of perfect Tao. The essence of perfect Tao is profoundly mysterious; its extent is lost in obscurity. "See nothing; hear nothing; guard your spirit in quietude and your body will go right of its own accord.

"Be quiet, be pure; toil not your body, perturb not your vital essence, and you will live for ever.

"For if the eye sees nothing, and the ear hears nothing, and the mind thinks nothing, your spirit will stay in your body, and the body will thereby live for ever.

"Cherish that which is within you, and shut off that which is without for much knowledge is a curse.

"Then I will take you to that abode of Great Light to reach the Plateau of Absolute Yang. I will lead you through the Door of the Dark Unknown to the Plateau of the Absolute Yin.

"The Heaven and Earth have their separate functions. The yin and yang have their hidden root. Guard carefully your body, and material things will prosper by themselves.

"I guard the original One, and rest in harmony with externals. Therefore I have been able to live for twelve hundred years and my body has not grown old."

The Yellow Emperor kowtowed twice and said, "Kuangch'engtse is surely God.

"Come," said Kuangch'engtse, "I will tell you. That thing is eternal; yet all men think it mortal. That thing is infinite; yet all men think it finite. Those who possess my Tao are princes in this life and rulers in the hereafter. Those who do not possess my Tao behold the light of day in this life and become clods of earth in the hereafter.

"Nowadays, all living things spring from the dust and to the dust return. But I will lead you through the portals of Eternity to wander in the great wilds of Infinity. My light is the light of sun and moon. My life is the life of Heaven and Earth. Before me all is nebulous; behind me all is dark, unknown. Men may all die, but I endure for ever."

When General Clouds was going eastwards, he passed through the branches of Fuyao (a magic tree) and happened to meet Great Nebulous. The latter was slapping his thighs and hopping about. When General Clouds saw him, he stopped like one lost and stood still, saying, "Who are you, old man, and what are you doing here?"

"Strolling!" replied Great Nebulous, still slapping his thighs and hopping about.

"I want to ask about something," said General Clouds.

"Ough!" uttered Great Nebulous.

"The spirits of Heaven are out of harmony," said General Clouds; "the spirits of the Earth are smothered; the six influences of the weather do not work together, and the four seasons are no longer regular. I desire to blend the essence of the six influences and nourish all living beings. What am I to do?"

"I do not know! I do not know!" cried Great Nebulous, shaking his head, while still slapping his thighs and hopping about.

So General Clouds did not press his question. Three years later, when passing eastwards through the plains of the Sungs, he again fell in with Great Nebulous. The former was overjoyed, and hurrying up, said, "Has your Holiness forgotten me? Has your Holiness forgotten me?" He then kowtowed twice and desired to be allowed to interrogate Great Nebulous; but the latter said, "I wander on without knowing what I want. I rush about without knowing whither I am going. I simply stroll about, watching unexpected events. What should I know?"

"I too regard myself as rushing about," answered General Clouds; "but the people follow my movements. I cannot escape the people and what I do they follow. I would gladly receive some advice."

"That the scheme of empire is in confusion," said Great Nebulous, "that the conditions of life are violated, that the will of the Dark Heaven is not accomplished, that the beasts of the field are scattered, that the birds of the air cry at night, that blight strikes the trees and herbs, that destruction spreads among the creeping things, -- this, alas! is the fault of those who would rule others."

"True," replied General Clouds, "but what am I to do?"

"Ah!" cried Great Nebulous, "keep quiet and go home in peace!"

"It is not often," urged General Clouds, "that I meet with your Holiness. I would gladly receive some advice."

"Ah," said Great Nebulous, "nourish your heart. Rest in inaction, and the world will be reformed of itself. Forget your body and spit forth intelligence. Ignore all differences and become one with the Infinite. Release your mind, and free your spirit. Be vacuous, be devoid of soul. Thus will things grow and prosper and return to their Root. Returning to their Root without their knowing it, the result will be a formless whole which will never be cut up. To know it is to cut it up. Ask not about its name, inquire not into its nature, and all things will flourish of themselves."

"Your Holiness," said General Clouds, "has informed me with power and taught me silence. What I had long sought, I have now found." Thereupon he kowtowed twice and took leave.

The people of this world all rejoice in others being like themselves, and object to others being different from themselves. Those who make friends with their likes and do not make friends with their unlikes, are influenced by a desire to be above the others. But how can those who desire to be above the others ever be above the others? Rather than base one's Judgment on the opinions of the many, let each look after his own affairs. But those who desire to govern kingdoms clutch at the advantages of (the systems of) the Three Kings without seeing the troubles involved. In fact, they are trusting the fortunes of a country to luck, but what country will be lucky enough to escape destruction? Their chances of preserving it do not amount to one in ten thousand, while their chances of destroying it are ten thousand to nothing and even more. Such, alas! is the ignorance of rulers.

For to have a territory is to have something great. He who has some thing great must not regard the material things as material things. Only by not regarding material things as material things can one be the lord of things. The principle of looking at material things as not real things is not confined to mere government of the empire. Such a one may wander at will between the six limits of space or travel over the Nine Continents unhampered and free. This is to be the Unique One. The Unique One is the highest among men.

The doctrine of the great man is (fluid) as shadow to form, as echo to sound. Ask and it responds, fulfilling its abilities as the help-mate of humanity. Noiseless in repose, objectless in motion, he brings you out of the confusion of your coming and going to wander in the Infinite. Formless in his movements, he is eternal with the sun. In respect of his bodily existence, he conforms to the universal standards. Through conformance to the universal standards, he forgets his own individuality. But if he forgets his individuality, how can he regard his possessions as possessions? Those who see possessions in possessions were the wise men of old. Those who regard not possessions as possessions are the friends of Heaven and Earth.

That which is low, but must be let alone, is matter. That which is humble, but still must be followed, is the people. That which is always there but still has to be attended to, is affairs. That which is inadequate, but still has to be set forth, is the law. That which is remote from Tao, but still claims our attention, is duty. That which is biassed, but must be broadened, is charity. Trivial, but requiring to be strengthened from within, that is ceremony. Contained within, but requiring to be uplifted, that is virtue. One, but not to be without modification, that is Tao. Spiritual, yet not to be devoid of action, that is God. Therefore the Sage looks up to God, but does not offer to aid. He perfects his virtue, but does not involve himself. He guides himself by Tao, but makes no plans. He identifies himself with charity, but does not rely on it. He performs his duties towards his neighbors, but does not set store by them. He responds to ceremony, without avoiding it. He undertakes affairs without declining them, and metes out law without confusion. He relies on the people and does not make light of them. He accommodates himself to matter and does not ignore it. Things are not worth attending to, yet they have to be attended to. He who does not understand God will not be pure in character. He who has not clear apprehension of Tao will not know where to begin. And he who is not enlightened by Tao, --alas indeed for him! What then is Tao? There is the Tao of God, and there is the Tao of man. Honour through inaction comes from the Tao of God: entanglement through action comes from the Tao of man. The Tao of God is fundamental: the Tao of man is accidental. The distance which separates them is great. Let us all take heed thereto!

Religion and science have been intertwined throughout history, and although these two modes of thought are seen as separate and antagonistic realms today, the ties still exist. You note how they are both based on belief systems; for instance, Occam's razor - the theory that the simplest explanation must be correct - is a scientific belief that may or may not be true.
It's not a very healthy relationship is it? There are some scientists who think that religion ought to be stamped out. They are a minority, fortunately.
Many religious people have a very sophisticated knowledge of and appreciation for science, but they think we need something more than science.

I think that science and religion can learn important things from each other. One of the more out-there ideas in the final chapter of "Lonely Planets" (called "Astrotheology") is that an intelligent species will only survive over cosmologically significant timescales if guided by a fusion of science and religion. Both scientific and spiritual progress are needed to survive natural disasters and avoid self-inflicted ones. So when we meet ET, or get a message from her, she may regard our making a distinction between the two as some primitive mental trap from which we need to be sprung.

One reason why astrobiology and SETI draw such huge public interest is that they are quests that are at once scientific and spiritual. People sense the need for a spirituality that is in tune with the modern world, and for a scientific culture that doesn't shy away from responsibility, admits the limitations of science, doesn't denigrate other belief systems, and is open to spirituality.
Astrobiology puts our limits and responsibilities right in our faces, and brings us up close to some huge spiritual questions. What is the role of life and consciousness in the universe? Is that a scientific, philosophical, or spiritual question?
Scientific rationalists like Carl Sagan and Arthur C. Clarke acknowledged that immortal, God-like beings could exist, yet they scoffed at people who arrived at this belief through religion rather than science. "The immortals," as they call them, would be so wise and advanced that their technology would be indistinguishable from magic.
A lot of rational thinkers, pondering the possible state of a species who have billions of years to evolve and develop technology, have ended up describing creatures who sound a lot like angels and gods. The same people are often Skeptics with a capital "S," and they sometimes take a dim view of what is essentially the same belief, arrived at through religion instead of logic.
Have you ever noticed that the word "God" tends to turn people's brains off, no matter what they believe? Carl found the word extremely distasteful. Many liberal-minded humanists see organized religion and God as something that enlightened people should have liberated themselves from by now.

The immortals are likely to be out there, and they might seem like gods to us if they ever decide that it's a good idea for us to meet them.
The immortals could not have existed before the Big Bang, but don't try telling any God what it can or cannot do! But that depends on what the Bang really was. If it was one in an ongoing and/or proliferating series of Bangs, if our universe is just one in a polyverse, which some believe, then the immortals may have figured out a way to make it through to a new universe. But they couldn't have existed before the first Bang, right? Unless there is no beginning because time loops back on itself through an eleven-dimensional space. Did you ever notice how cosmological theories sometimes seem like Star Trek episodes?

Another mind-bender is the notion that we may create our own reality through our perceptions. That could be one explanation for alien encounters, and yet also a limitation in trying to learn about the universe. Even though I believe in an external, material reality, that doesn't mean that our perceptions and conceptions will ever be more than glimpses. Just think about the complexity of the simple act of observing a light in the sky - the optics, the electromagnetics, the neurophysiology, the cognitive processes. Even a 'direct observation' is far from direct.

In trying to understand the UFO phenomenon, different people living in the same place see different things in the same sky. This is very different from saying that the stories are just made up. Of course many of them are. But belief really can influence what people see, which is pretty weird.

The act of seeing is complex in ways that we usually ignore. If you look at the history of science, scientists usually think they have the universe all figured out; they just have to work out the details. Then an idea comes along which blows away their comfortable notions. Why should this process be over? We can't know which of our current "common sense" beliefs will go the way of the geocentric universe before the Copernican revolution.

Maybe somewhere in science's difficulty in defining consciousness, or defining life, or understanding the role that these play in the universe, lie the seeds of the next great awakening.

The complexity theory, the mathematical study of spontaneous pockets of order in a universe where the main trend is toward entropy, suggests that life on Earth is not a fluke, but a local flowering of a capacity for life inherent in our universe. But life isn't just about self-organization in the face of entropy, is it? That would mean things like snow crystals and galaxies are alive.

Self-organization and escape from entropy are defining characteristics of life. But they're not the only ones. One could add some kind of system of heredity that allows for evolution. That kills off the crystals and galaxies. But heredity and extreme self-organization may be one and the same at some level.

Since life on Earth is by far the most complex thing we know of in the universe, it is reasonable to think that the only way the universe knows how to achieve that level of self-organization is through heredity. It is quite possible that nonlinear, self-organizing physico-chemical processes were key in the development of hereditary systems. So without the self-organization inherent in certain complex systems, we may never have gotten to RNA and DNA.

Looking for life by searching for extreme, and seemingly anomalous, departures from equilibrium on other planets is the single best, least Earth-centric strategy we have at present. James Lovelock, who developed the Gaia Hypothesis with Lynn Margulis, deserves a lot of credit for this strategy. He was doing astrobiology decades before it was hip.

This leads to another point about aliens perhaps embedding hidden messages for us to stumble upon in the cosmos, our world, or even our own biology. Carl Sagan hinted at this idea in his book "Contact," where the number 'pi' holds a message from a lost alien civilization. Could complexity theory point to evidence for superior alien technology?

If you were trying to send a message that would be recognized by a sentient species, and you were really able to mess with the universe, then a cool way to do it would be to alter a basic physical constant - such as pi - to embed a message that would reveal itself to certain kinds of mathematical analyses.

Technology seems to accelerate life's departure from equilibrium, both in terms of chemistry and the production of "nonequilibrium structures," constructions with shapes that are "unnatural," that would just be implausible in a completely random universe. So strange order and disequilibrium may be hallmarks of intelligence or technology.

This is an old idea. Kepler used this kind of argument to prove there is intelligent life on the moon. He thought since the "circles" on the moon are perfectly round, they must be cities. He didn't know what we know today about impact cratering, in which the physics of explosions act as nearly perfect circular cookie-cutters.

When pulsars were first discovered, some people thought they might be alien messages. Then we learned that a spinning neutron star can act like a lighthouse, sending a repeating beacon into the universe. So mysterious order is a good thing to look for, but it could also fool us into thinking we have found the hand of ET in patterns that result from some physical process that we don't yet understand.

There is something spooky about the way mathematical relationships are so enmeshed with the physical nature of our universe. Complexity theory allows us to follow this intimate relationship beyond physics and into the realm of biology. Nobody knows why equations work so well in describing things. Maybe it's the handprint of God, or an ancient, advanced, powerful alien race.

Shodoka: Song of Enlightenment

There is the leisurely one,
Walking the Tao, beyond philosophy,
Not avoiding fantasy, not seeking truth.
The real nature of ignorance is the Buddha-nature itself;
The empty delusory body is the very body of the Dharma.

When the Dharma body awakens completely,
There is nothing at all.
The source of our self-nature
Is the Buddha of innocent truth.
Mental and physical reactions come and go
Like clouds in the empty sky;
Greed, hatred, and ignorance appear and disappear
Like bubbles on the surface of the sea.

When we realize actuality,
There is no distinction between mind and thing
And the path to hell instantly vanishes.
If this is a lie to fool the world,
My tongue may be cut out forever.

Once we awaken to the Tathagata-Zen,
The six noble deeds and the ten thousand good actions
Are already complete within us.
In our dream we see the six levels of illusion clearly;
After we awaken the whole universe is empty.

No bad fortune, no good fortune, no loss, no gain;
Never seek such things in eternal serenity.
For years the dusty mirror has gone uncleaned,
Now let us polish it completely, once and for all.

Who has no-thought? Who is not-born?
If we are truly not-born,
We are not un-born either.
Ask a robot if this is not so.
How can we realize ourselves
By virtuous deeds or by seeking the Buddha?

Release your hold on earth, water, fire, wind;
Drink and eat as you wish in eternal serenity.
All things are transient and completely empty;
This is the great enlightenment of the Tathagata.

Transience, emptiness and enlightenment —
These are the ultimate truths of Buddhism;
Keeping and teaching them is true Sangha devotion.
If you don`t agree, please ask me about it.
Cut out directly the root of it all —
This is the very point of the Buddha-seal.
I can't respond to any concern about leaves and branches.

People do not recognize the Mani-jewel.
Living intimately within the Tathagata-garbha,
It operates our sight, hearing, smell, taste, sensation, awareness;
And all of these are empty, yet not empty.
The rays shining from this perfect Mani-jewel
Have the form of no form at all.
Clarify the five eyes and develop the five powers;
This is not intellectual work — just realize, just know.
It is not difficult to see images in a mirror,
But who can take hold of the moon in the water?

Always working alone, always walking alone,
The enlightened one walks the free way of Nirvana
With melody that is old and clear in spirit
And naturally elegant in style,
But with body that is tough and bony,
Passing unnoticed in the world.

We know that Shakya's sons and daughters
Are poor in body, but not in the Tao.
In their poverty, they always wear ragged clothing,
But they have the jewel of no price treasured within.

This jewel of no price can never be used up
Though they spend it freely to help people they meet.
Dharmakaya, Sambogakaya, Nirmanakaya,
And the four kinds of wisdom
Are all contained within.
The eight kinds of emancipation and the six universal powers
Are all impressed on the ground of their mind.

The best student goes directly to the ultimate,
The others are very learned but their faith is uncertain.
Remove the dirty garments from your own mind;
Why should you show off your outward striving?

Some may slander, some may abuse;
They try to set fire to the heavens with a torch
And end by merely tiring themselves out.
I hear their scandal as though it were ambrosial truth;
Immediately everything melts
And I enter the place beyond thought and words.

When I consider the virtue of abusive words,
I find the scandal-monger is my good teacher.
If we do not become angry at gossip,
We have no need for powerful endurance and compassion.

To be mature in Zen is to be mature in expression,
And full-moon brilliance of dhyana and prajna
Does not stagnate in emptiness.
Not only can I take hold of complete enlightenment by myself,
But all Buddha-bodies, like sands of the Ganges,
Can become awakened in exactly the some way.

The incomparable lion-roar of doctrine
Shatters the brains of the one hundred kinds of animals.
Even the king of elephants will run away, forgetting his pride;
Only the heavenly dragon listens calmly, with pure delight.
I wandered over rivers and seas, crossing mountains and streams,
Visiting teachers, asking about the Way in personal interviews;

Since I recognized the Sixth Founding Teacher at Ts'ao Ch'i,
I know what is beyond the relativity of birth and death.

Walking is Zen, sitting is Zen;
Speaking or silent, active or quiet, the essence is at peace.
Even facing the sword of death, our mind is unmoved;
Even drinking poison, our mind is quiet.
Our teacher, Shakyamuni, met Dipankara Buddha
And for many eons he trained as Kshanti, the ascetic.
Many births, many deaths;
I am serene in this cycle — there is no end to it.

Since I abruptly realized the unborn,
I have had no reason for joy or sorrow
At any honor or disgrace.

I have entered the deep mountains to silence and beauty;
In a profound valley beneath high cliffs,
I sit under the old pine trees.
Zazen in my rustic cottage
Is peaceful, lonely, and truly comfortable.

When you truly awaken,
You have no formal merit.
In the multiplicity of the relative world,
You cannot find such freedom.
Self-centered merit brings the joy of heaven itself,

But it is like shooting an arrow at the sky;
When the force is exhausted, it falls to the earth,
And then everything goes wrong.

Why should this be better
Than the true way of the absolute,
Directly penetrating the ground of Tathagata?

Just take hold of the source
And never mind the branches.
It is like a treasure-moon
Enclosed in a beautiful emerald.
Now I understand this Mani-jewel
And my gain is the gain of everyone endlessly.

The moon shines on the river,
The wind blows through the pines —
Whose providence is this long beautiful evening?
The Buddha-nature jewel of morality
Is impressed on the ground of my mind,

And my robe is the dew, the fog, the cloud, and the mist.

A bowl once calmed dragons
And a staff separated fighting tigers;
The rings on this staff jingle musically.
The form of these expressions is not to be taken lightly;
The treasure-staff of the Tathagata
Has left traces for us to follow.

The awakened one does not seek truth —
Does not cut off delusion.
Truth and delusion are both vacant and without form,
But this no-form is neither empty nor not empty;
It is the truly real form of the Tathagata.

The mind-mirror is clear, so there are no obstacles.
Its brilliance illuminates the universe
To the depths and in every grain of sand.
Multitudinous things of the cosmos
Are all reflected in the mind,
And this full clarity is beyond inner and outer.

To live in nothingness is to ignore cause and effect;
This chaos leads only to disaster.
The one who clings to vacancy, rejecting the world of things,
Escapes from drowning but leaps into fire.

Holding truth and rejecting delusion —
These are but skillful lies.
Students who do zazen by such lies
Love thievery in their own children.

They miss the Dharma-treasure;
They lose accumulated power;
And this disaster follows directly upon dualistic thinking.
So Zen is the complete realization of mind,
The complete cutting off of delusion,
The power of wise vision penetrating directly to the unborn.

Students of vigorous will hold the sword of wisdom;
The prajna edge is a diamond flame.
It not only cuts off useless knowledge,
But also exterminates delusions.

They roar with Dharma-thunder;
They strike the Dharma-drum;
They spread clouds of love, and pour ambrosial rain.
Their giant footsteps nourish limitless beings;
Sravaka, Pratyeka, Bodhisattva--all are enlightened;
Five kinds of human nature all are emancipated.

High in the Himalayas, only fei-ni grass grows.
Here cows produce pure and delicious milk,
And this food I continually enjoy.
One complete nature passes to all natures;
One universal Dharma encloses all Dharmas.
One moon is reflected in many waters;
All the water-moons are from the one moon.

The Dharma-body of all Buddhas has entered my own nature,
And my nature becomes one with the Tathagata.

One level completely contains all levels;
It is not matter, mind nor activity.
In an instant eighty-thousand teachings are fulfilled;
In a twinkling the evil of eons is destroyed.
All categories are no category;
What relation have have these to my insight?

Beyond praise, beyond blame —
Like space itself it has no bounds.
Right here it is eternally full and serene,

If you search elsewhere, you cannot see it.
You cannot grasp it, you cannot reject it;
In the midst of not gaining,
In that condition you gain it.
It speaks in silence,
In speech you hear its silence.

The great way has opened and there are no obstacles.
If someone asks, what is your sect
And how do you understand it?
I reply, the power of tremendous prajna.

People say it is positive;
People say it is negative;
But they do not know.
A smooth road, a rough road —
Even heaven cannot imagine.

I have continued my zazen for many eons;
I do not say this to confuse you.

I raise the Dharma-banner and set forth our teaching;
It is the clear doctrine of the Buddha
Which I found with my teacher, Hui Neng,
Mahakashyapa became the Buddha-successor,

Received the lamp and passed it on.
Twenty-eight generations of teachers in India,
Then over seas and rivers to our land
Bodhi Dharma came as our own first founder,
And his robe, as we all know, passed through six teachers here,
And how many generations to come may gain the path,
No one knows.

The truth is not set forth;
The false is basically vacant.
Put both existence and non-existence aside,
Then even non-vacancy is vacant,
The twenty kinds of vacancy have no basis,
And the oneness of the Tathagata-being
Is naturally sameness.

Mind is the base, phenomena are dust;
Yet both are like a flaw in the mirror.
When the flaw is brushed aside,
The light begins to shine.
When both mind and phenomena are forgotten,
Then we become naturally genuine.

Ah, the degenerate materialistic world!
People are unhappy; they find self-control difficult.
In the centuries since Shakyamuni, false views are deep,
Demons are strong, the Dharma is weak, disturbances are many.

People hear the Buddha's doctrine of immediacy,
And if they accept it, the demons will be crushed
As easily as a roofing tile.

But they cannot accept, what a pity!
Your mind is the source of action;
Your body is the agent of calamity;
No pity nor blame to anyone else.

If you don't seek an invitation to hell,
Never slander the Tathagata's true teaching.

In the sandalwood forest, there is no other tree.
Only the lion lives in such deep luxuriant woods,
Wandering freely in a state of peace.
Other animals and birds stay far away.
Just baby lions follow the parent,
And three-year-olds already roar loudly.
How can the jackal pursue the king of the Dharma
Even with a hundred-thousand demonic arts?

The Buddha's doctrine of directness
Is not a matter for human emotion.
If you doubt this or feel uncertain,
Then you must discuss it with me.

This is not the free rein of a mountain monk's ego.
I fear your training may lead to wrong views
Of permanent soul or complete extinction.

Being is not being; non-being is not non-being;
Miss this rule by a hair,
And you are off by a thousand miles.
Understanding it, the dragon-child abruptly attains Buddhahood;
Misunderstanding it, the greatest scholar falls into hell.

From my youth I piled studies upon studies,
In sutras and sastras I searched and researched,
Classifying terms and forms, oblivious to fatigue.
I entered the sea to count the sands in vain
And then the Tathagata scolded me kindly
As I read "What profit in counting your neighbor's treasure?"
My work had been scattered and entirely useless,
For years I was dust blown by the wind.

If the seed-nature is wrong, misunderstandings arise,
And the Buddha's doctrine of immediacy cannot be attained.
Shravaka and Pratyeka students may study earnestly
But they lack aspiration.
Others may be very clever,
But they lack prajna.

Stupid ones, childish ones,
They suppose there is something in an empty fist.
They mistake the pointing finger for the moon.
They are idle dreamers lost in form and sensation.

Not supposing something is the Tathagata.
This is truly called Kwan-Yin, the Bodhisattva who sees freely.
When awakened we find karmic hindrances fundamentally empty.
But when not awakened, we must repay all our debts.

The hungry are served a king's repast,
And they cannot eat.
The sick meet the king of doctors;
Why don't they recover?

The practice of Zen in this greedy world —
This is the power of wise vision.
The lotus lives in the midst of the fire;
It is never destroyed.

Pradhanashura broke the gravest precepts;
But he went on to realize the unborn.
The Buddhahood he attained in that moment
Lives with us now in our time.

The incomparable lion roar of the doctrine!
How sad that people are stubbornly ignorant;
Just knowing that crime blocks enlightenment,
Not seeing the secret of the Tathagata teaching.

Two monks were guilty of murder and carnality.
Their leader, Upali, had the light of a glow-worm;
He just added to their guilt.
Vimalakirti cleared their doubts at once
As sunshine melts the frost and snow.

The remarkable power of emancipation
Works wonders innumerable as the sands of the Ganges.
To this we offer clothing, food, bedding, medicine.

Ten thousand pieces of gold are not sufficient;
Though you break your body
And your bones become powder —
This is not enough for repayment.
One vivid word surpasses millions of years of practice.

The King of the Dharma deserves our highest respect.
Tathagatas, innumerable as sands of the Ganges,
All prove this fact by their attainment.

Now I know what the Mani-jewel is:
Those who believe this will gain it accordingly.
When we see truly, there is nothing at all.
There is no person; there is no Buddha.
Innumerable things of the universe
Are just bubbles on the sea.

Wise sages are all like flashes of lightning
However the burning iron ring revolves around my head,
With bright completeness of dhyana and prajna

I never lose my equanimity.
If the sun becomes cold, and the moon hot,
Evil cannot shatter the truth.

The carriage of the elephant moves like a mountain,
How can the mantis block the road?
The great elephant does not loiter on the rabbit's path.

Great enlightenment is not concerned with details.
Don't belittle the sky by looking through a pipe.
If you still don't understand,
I will settle it for you.