QUOTATION MARKS - Song on Cultivating Openess

So openness is the great root of the world
This maybe symbolised by bamboo:

Dealing with events directly,
Dealing with the world adaptably
Managing the mind with flexibility
Managing the body with calmness
This is like the resilient strength of bamboo

Forgetting emotions in action,
Forgetting thoughts in stillness,
Forgetting self in dealing with events
Forgetting things in adapting to change -
This is like the inner emptiness of bamboo

Establishing certain resolve,
Keeping the mind free from doubt,
Completely pervading inside and out,
Unchanging beginning to end -
This is like the endurance of bamboo.

Widely calling on adepts,
Visiting enlightened teachers everywhere,
Synthesising Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism-
This is the clustering of bamboo

Add to this seeing the basic, embracing the fundamental,
Minimising selfishness and desire,
Tuning the breath, exercising sincerity,
Observing transformation, knowing return-
Who can do this unless utterly open?

Responding to the time and people,
One rests the spirit of openness,
Acts in openness,
Reveals the state of openness in speech
When openness reaches the point
Where there is not even any "openness",
Then all logic ends.

When you plunge into openness,
Heaven and earth come to you.
With open heart and upright bearing
Be like the green bamboo;

This is the foremost device
For cultivating openness.



13th Century Taoist Master
Edited from The Book of Balance & Harmony
Translated by Thomas Cleary, Published by Rider 1989.