Ancient Wisdom

If you over esteem great men, people become powerless. If you over value possessions, people begin to steal. The Master leads by emptying people's minds and filling their cores, by weakening their ambition and toughening their resolve. He helps people lose everything they know, everything they desire, and creates confusion in those who think that they know. Practice not-doing and everything will fall into place.

  'Yen Yuan' inquired as to the meaning of true goodness. The Master said: " The subdued of self, and reversion to the natural laws governing conduct-this is true goodness. If a man can for the space of one day subdue his selfishness and revert to natural laws, the whole world will call him good. True goodness springs from a man's own heart. How can it depend on other men?" 'Yen Yuan ' said: "Kindly tell me the practical rule to be deduced from this." -The Master replied: "Do not use your eyes, your ears, your power of speech on your faculty of movement without obeying the inner law of self control."-' Yen Yuan ' said: "Though I am not quick in thought or act , I will make it my business to carry out this precept." [Source: The Wisdom Of the Chinese, Brian Brown, New York, Brentano's Publishers.]

  It is recorded that a man went to 'Ahmad Yasavi ', th e Sufi Master of Turkestan, and said: "Teach me without books, and let me learn to understand without the intervention of a master between me and Truth, for humans are frail, and reading books does not enlighten me." 'Yasavi ' said: "Do you seek to each without a mouth, or to digest without a stomach? Perhaps you would like to walk without feet and buy without paying... I could do as you ask only if you could first dispense with physical organs, as you wish to avoid those things which have been devised for the spiritual organs. 'Just think for a moment whether you could use food without an apparatus, approach the Sufis without having heard of them in the words you so dislike, desire wisdom without a source appropriate to your state.' 'It may be an amusing pastime to think of learning without books as a basis, and experiencing without a teacher. So is it an amusing pastime to think of mag

 When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being creates each other. Difficult and easy support each other. Long and short define each other. Before and after follow each other. Therefore the Master acts without doing anything. Things arise and she lets them come; things disappear and she lets them go. She has but doesn't possess, acts but doesn't expect. When her work is done, she forgets it. That is why it lasts forever. [Source: Tao Te Ching, A New English Version, Forward and Notes by Stephen Mitchell, published by Modern Classics, New York.]