Who (be quiet) Are You?

Look, and it can’t be seen.
Listen, and it can’t be heard.
Reach, and it can’t be grasped.

Above, it isn’t bright.
Below, it isn’t dark.
Seamless, unnamable,
it returns to the realm of nothing.
Form that includes all forms,
image without an image,
subtle, beyond all conception.

Approach it and there is no beginning;
follow it and there is no end.
You can’t know it, but you can be it,
at ease in your own life.
Just realize where you come from:
this is the essence of wisdom.

~Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Laozi, Dao De Jing 14

(Photo by Vadim Trunov)

Colors blind the eye.
Sounds deafen the ear.
Flavors numb the taste.
Thoughts weaken the mind.
Desires wither the heart.

The Master observes the world
but trusts his inner vision.
He allows things to come and go.
His heart is open as the sky.

~Laozi, Dao De Jing 12, trans. by Stephen Mitchell

[I love this, even though the translation from the classical Chinese is quite inaccurate in a literal sense, it feels more than “right”…]

(Photo by Andris Eglitis)