Those steeped in goodness
Are like a newborn baby,
The eternal beginning, the life-bringing source:
Insects don’t sting,
Wild animals don’t attack.
They have weak muscles and soft bones
But a strong and firm grip.
They don’t know anything about sex
But their sexual organs still swell.
Full of true essence in balanced harmony,
They can cry all day without getting hoarse.
With perfectly balanced breath,
They live at endless ease with everything.
Knowing this harmony,
They understand the eternal.
Understanding the eternal,
They become wise.
The foolish though rush about,
Straining and trying to control
Exhausting their vital breath
Leading to rigidity and decay.
“The great person is one who does not lose his mind-and-heart of a child.”
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“Once plants reach their height of development, they wither. Once people reach their peak, they grow old. Force does not prevail for long. It isn’t the Tao. What is withered and old cannot follow the Tao. And what cannot follow the Tao soon dies.”
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“Unless you become like little children, you cannot know the meaning of Life, for your minds must be cleared of the falsehoods of this realm if you are to be taught Eternal Truth.”
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“Old and sick final years over a hundred
Face brown head white content with mountain life
Cloth robe pulled tight I accept my karma
Why would I envy the clever ways of others?”
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“know that a sudden comprehension comes when the mind has been purged of all the clutter of conceptual and discriminatory thought-activity.”
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“Those who possess the Way are like children. They come of age without growing old.”
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“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”
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“The young do not know enough to be prudent, and therefore they attempt the impossible -- and achieve it, generation after generation.”
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“A child-like man is not a man whose development has been arrested; on the contrary, he is a man who has given himself a chance of continuing to develop long after most adults have muffled themselves in the cocoon of middle-aged habit and convention.”
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“The true business of people should be to go back to school and think about whatever it was they were thinking about before somebody came along and told them they had to earn a living.”
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“I have a lifetime appointment and I intend to serve it. I expect to die at 110, shot by a jealous husband.”
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“The person who can most easily take up natural agriculture… has the mind and heart of a child. One must simply know nature . . . real nature, not the one we think we know!”
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“Youth passes – so does spring. Old age comes – so do winter’s lovely snowscapes… I’m bursting with energy, so I’ll jog or climb Mount Hua. I’m too ill to move, so I’ll enjoy my warm bed and meditate”
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“What is eternal is forever young, never grows old…The Way never fails. We are waves. It is the sea.”
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“Whatever you may be doing, every minute of every hour is a new chapter, a new page.”
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“May you always know the truth and see the lights surrounding you…Forever young, forever young, May you stay forever young.”
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Comments (1)
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Shan Dao
7 years ago
Thanks to Bob Dylan for the title and to Lao Tzu for the insight differentiating this sane attitude toward youthful qualities from our modern worship of the superficial side of being young as well as the confused “Taoist” search for longevity during later centuries.
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