South Florida proved to be a natural place where my writing seemed to flourish. It was much better than the cold and snow of the northeast. Our apartment out on Military Trail was convenient to the CVS a couple blocks away and easy to get to work as the Assistant Planner in Boynton Beach. It was hot and humid and early July. The saying that it rains everyday around 4PM seemed true. Generally, just a brief shower that just made the humidity worse. Mornings were best.
The apartments had a lake surrounded by all the buildings with a deck with chairs to sit and enjoy the nature of it all. I enjoyed going out very early every morning to just sit and sometimes meditate in the silence waiting for it to get light enough to write. I seldom mention the time I spend in meditation because it’s simply the silence that takes me within to spirit where nature dwells.
It reminded me then, as it does now, that spirit exists in everything within the natural world. It’s the same spirit that resides in each of us. We might call it God, or by tradition leave it unnamed, or simply refer to it as Tao or something else. It is universal, speaks to all things, and is always present.
It was the third and fourth of July 1995 when I wrote the entry below. It hardly needs any introduction, but I’ve come to realize that we all carry a part of whatever it is that connects us. The light within us is the same light we are meant to share with all living beings. We are it, and it is us—it’s that simple. This is the essence of life’s philosophy. When we meditate or pray, we are seeking common ground that looks to the commonality of what remain universal within all things that in turn speaks to us that helps to light our way.
Clear your mind and let the ripple of the wind on the water take you there… and remember that we are continuing in the chapter called “Yang Chu”.
My travels with Lieh Tzu / Interpolations along the Way
Chapter Seven – Yang Chu
109. Living and dying in nature’s way
The ripple of the wind on the water making the reflection of clouds dance across the surface in blue and white and multi‑colored shades of gray. You have come to find the peace and harmony found in nature. As the wind blows gently at your back pushing you onward. Your thoughts one with the water and the images of what you are yet to become.
The sounds of the small wood duck, you have named Qi Chang, as it scoots along its morning trek from one side of the lake to the other. As it looks for new grass shoots along the water’s edge. Two red‑winged blackbirds playing tag amidst the tall grass with both screaming and squawking tag your it – no ‑ tag your it! Numerous ducks and geese zig zagging this way and that as they go along for the ride with no real destination.
Only going wherever, the water happens to push them. Mother goose out early this morning with ten baby ducklings keeping close by. Just out for a walk. Just taking it all in. A quietness and stillness ever‑present except for the sound of thunder booming in the distance. Rain falling to the southwest, as it begins to head your way. The dragons simply remind you that they are as always close by.
Looking for the meaning of what Yang Chu is telling you over thousands of years of space and time. Except that now he is sitting beside you guiding your thoughts and your pen as you open your heart and mind to what he is now telling you. Letting the sway of nature be your guide to what must come forth in discovering the true meaning of what is meant to be tending to one’s life. Yang Chu telling you how one must truly live. How you must go about without restraint without succumbing to oppressive masters. Using Yen Tzu and Kuan Chuang to tell the story. Each asking the other to explain the tending of one’s life and of the death that must follow.
Yen Tzu begins by asking Kuan Chuang: “How or why should we live without restrictions? Is not the answer simply to discover the satisfaction of personal needs without injuring one’s own health, life, or another’s? To live without restraint. Staying to the spontaneity of each moment without restriction, without suppression”.
Kuan Chuang responded to Yen Tzu by saying: “You must give yourself up to whatever your ears wish to listen to, your eyes wish to look upon, and your nostrils tend to turn to, your mouth has to say, your body finds to achieve”.
He continues by saying: “What the ears wish to hear is music and song, what the eyes wish to see is the beauty of women, what the nose likes to smell is fine flowers and spices, what the mouth wishes to discuss is truth and falsehood. What the body wishes to achieve is freedom and leisure”.
We are now reminded of the wood duck, Qi Chang, as it is seen taking a bath letting the cleansing water be as troubles beading off his back as he comes clean of where he has been as he prepares to move on. To remain unrestricted and unrestrained to what life brings. To be as the duck letting the water bead off his feathers and to wait serenely for whatever life brings you as you wait for death and its promise of what must follow. Whether you live another day, a month a year or ten, this is what is meant by tending to one’s life.
However, if you remain bound to these pleasures in such a way that your true sense of hearing is restricted, that your true sense of sight is restricted, that your true sense of smell is restricted, that ease in and your will to your true sense of comfort is restricted and that your true nature is restricted, and in remaining so cannot escape their ban rather you lived a hundred years, a thousand years you would not be tending to your life.
Kuan Chuang then asked Yen Tzu: “Now that I have told you the secrets to how one tends to life, you must tell me what is known and taking our leave in death”.
Yen Tzu responded: “What can it matter how we die. Once I am dead what concern is it of mine? It is the same to me whether you burn me or sink me in a river, bury me or leave me in the open, throw me in a ditch wrapped in grass or put me in a coffin dressed in a dragon‑blazoned jacket and embroidered shirt. I leave it all to chance”.
Kuan Chuang and Yen Tzu turned to their friends and stated that this is all there is to say about the way to live and to die. Ultimately staying within the confines of what nature brings us.
Just as in the beginning as you recall the ripple of the wind on the water’s surface making the images of clouds dance across the water. Everything reminds you of your own journey Cloud Dancing as you ask yourself how your own travels through space and time could be any different. 7/3‑4/95
Number one hundred nine of one hundred fifty-eight entries.
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