Way
The way that needs constant words is not the way to understanding.
The word that can magically create, does not lead to the way.
The silent awareness is where understanding begins.
The holy name is the form, the mold.
Listen to the meaning, the substance inside.
Define and nail down everything, and we will miss the way.
Two ways of seeing from the same place.
This only seems confusing.
Which is obvious, which is hidden?
The door, or the way through.
Hog-shearing. Much ado about nothing. "It's a great cry and little wool, as the Devil said when he sheared his hogs."
-Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963 p.457.
The word that can magically create, does not lead to the way.
The silent awareness is where understanding begins.
The holy name is the form, the mold.
Listen to the meaning, the substance inside.
Define and nail down everything, and we will miss the way.
Two ways of seeing from the same place.
This only seems confusing.
Which is obvious, which is hidden?
The door, or the way through.
Hog-shearing. Much ado about nothing. "It's a great cry and little wool, as the Devil said when he sheared his hogs."
-Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1963 p.457.
Posted by Zhoen on Wednesday, January 26, 2011
4 comments:
A favorite of mine is Red Pine's 1996 translation of #11:
Thirty spokes converge on a hub
but it's the emptiness
that makes a wheel work
pots are fashioned from clay
but it's the hollow
that makes a pot work
windows and doors are carved for a house
but it's the spaces
that make a house work
existence makes something useful
but nonexistence makes it work.
(o)
verification word. crate
(o)
Reading this, and R's quote above, takes me back to finding an old clothbound edition of Arthur Waley's translation in the school library, and what a wide open door it was. There were such treasures there, being confined to it was supposed to be a kind of privation, to keep our noses to the grindstone and make us get on with our work. Little did they know how happily I was able to get distracted there...
Post a Comment
<< Home