Tao Te Ching, trans. Stephen Mitchell. New York: Harper Perennial, 1982, #20.
Stop thinking, and end your problems.
What difference between yes and no?
Must you value what others value,
avoid what others avoid?
How ridiculous!
Other people are excited,
as though they were at a parade.
I alone don’t care,
I alone am expressionless,
like an infant before it can smile.
Other people have what they need:
I alone possess nothing.
I alone drift about,
like someone without a home.
I am like an idiot, my mind is so empty.
Other people are bright;
I alone am dark.
Other people are sharp;
I alone am dull.
Other people have a purpose;
I alone don’t know.
I drift like a wave on the ocean,
I blow as aimless as the wind.
I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts.
2 comments:
Here in this passage from the Tao Te Ching is the feeling of what happens when we let go of thinking and live in the underneath place, the intuitive place, from which a greater wisdom flows like milk. God is always inviting us into this place, but our minds have so many objections to it.
"I am different from ordinary people.
I drink from the Great Mother’s breasts."
Many times I do feel different, sometimes specifically because I relate to a feminine God, Mother God, unlike most of the people I hear talk about their theologies. I would like to feel so confident as the writer in Tao Te Ching about being different. Not usually, however.
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