To live as if you have three great swords cutting through what is non-essential. First to set goals, second to fight injustice, and third, to gain or give protection and help to achieve those goals. Living beyond what seems possible, unconcerned with what may lie around the corner and what may hold the key. Making a difference for those who follow just the same. 

Just as stated before, the best things happen without knowing. To fight battles without concern for winning with clarity, virtue, and a just cause.

As though guided by a mythical altered state of consciousness or mindfulness. Remembering, and even perhaps emulating the dance called the Pace of Yu, knowing that all things exist and change as they should in the right climate…

In ancient China, the leaders were chosen by ability. Yu the Great had made a name for himself by controlling the flooding of the Yellow River, so he eventually became the emperor of the Xia dynasty. From his reign, China’s dynastic cycle began where the kingdom was passed on to a relative, usually from father to son.

In popular culture over the centuries Yu the Great was emulated as Yubu, translated as Pace(s) of Yu or Step(s) of Yu, the basic mystic dance step of religious Taoism. 

Today we would simply see this as anticipating climate change and doing no harm by or through our actions, guided by the direction nature intends us to go… as we too take steps to become the change. Just as Yu the Great devised the plan to stop the flooding. Following our natural instincts, we must want to go there to get there. Giving meaning to what we do brings quality to our lives following our heart first and expression second. Acting as though others know how you are feeling inside and living beyond the surface of conditions with a sense of accomplishing things as if looking down from the clouds… As we live within what is known as Heaven’s Gift. 

(Below is the introduction to Chapter One of My travels with Lieh Tzu and following entries).

Chapter One – Heaven’s Gift

Introduction…    Becoming Sanctified

Traveling as one with the wind you become sanctified as one with Lieh Tzu. Coming out of the security you have found as the sage forever only concerned about images and things always to remain translucent. Keeping to new heights found only in the mountain retreat where nothing is to be found but stillness. 

Everything following its natural course as heaven and earth dictates. Simply coming to know the seasons and continuity found in following day and night. Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter, growth and decay, birth, and death. Man alone in knowing his true path. With only the sage knowing the proper sequence of events of the path that must be followed. 

The inn at the mountain pass Qingcheng Mountain north of Chengdu                                                                 Man occupying the modest, unpretentious place on the mountain’s trail as shown in the paintings of antiquity. Living only to come forward to find the true way to be found only by following the Tao. Without thought or purpose. Without choosing to be born or to die. Yet following the Way. Basing our every action on instinct and spontaneity. To distinguish between benefit and harm, understand alternative courses of action and form moral and practical courses of conduct without the need to do so.

To discard knowledge unfamiliar with the Way, cease to make distinctions, refuse to impose our will on nature. To return to the innocence found in a newborn child and allow our actions to come naturally as a part of nature itself. To reflect things like a mirror and respond as an echo without intervening thought.  

Perfectly concentrated and perfectly relaxed as one who finds his second nature on hands and knees pulling weeds from his garden. Cleansing one’s soul of unwanted intrusions. 

Remaining fully attentive to the external situation. Responding naturally to events as they occur. Not analyzing, as if spontaneously allowing your response to just take the unified action that comes forth simply to occur.   1/10/95 

Everything as it should be 

Nothing escaping change within the oneness of Tao. Looking you don’t see it, listening you cannot hear it, groping you cannot touch it. Lieh Tzu says heaven and earth cannot achieve everything. The sage is not capable of everything and none of the myriad things can be used for everything. 

Moments in the mist before sunrise on Yellow Mountain in Anhui Province in China

It is the responsibility of heaven to give birth and to shelter, the responsibility of earth to shape and to support; the sage to teach and reform and for each thing to perform its function. As a result, there are ways in which the earth excels heaven and ways in which each thing is smarter than the sage. Why is this? 

Heaven which brings birth and shelters cannot shape and support, earth which shapes and supports cannot teach and reform. The sage that teaches and reforms cannot make things act counter to their functions, things with set places cannot leave their places.

Staying in tune with Heaven’s gift     Big Wild Goose Pagoda Xian                                                                                                      Therefore, the way of heaven and earth must be either yin or yang. The teaching of the sage must be kindness or justice and the myriad things, whatever their function must be, either hard or soft. All these observe their functions and cannot lose their places.  

Everything acts together in harmony. Everything the same and nothing the same all at the same time. Shape comes from the shapeless, form from the formless. Everything finds its essence in the way of the Tao. Everything only as it should be.      1/15/95