If you persist in trying to attain what is never attained; if you persist in making efforts to obtain what effort cannot get; if you persist in reasoning about what cannot be understood — you will be destroyed by the very thing you seek.
To know when to stop, to know when you can get no further by your own action — this is the right beginning.
You can never find happiness until you stop looking for it. My greatest happiness consists precisely in doing nothing whatever that is calculated to obtain happiness — and this, in the minds of most people, is the worst possible course. If you ask, ‘what ought to be done’ and ‘what ought not to be done’, in order to produce happiness — I answer that these questions do not have an answer. There is no way of determining such things.
Yet, at the same time, if I cease striving for happiness, the right and the wrong at once become apparent, all by themselves. Contentment and well being at once become possible the moment you cease to act with them in view. And if you practice non-doing, Wu Wei, you will have both happiness and well-being.
To name Tao is to name no thing. Tao is not the name of something created. Cause and chance have no bearing on the Tao. Tao is a name that indicates without defining. Tao is beyond words and beyond things. It is not expressed either in words, or in silence. Where there is no longer word or silence, Tao is apprehended.
To exercise no thought and rest in nothing is the first step toward resting in Tao. To start from nowhere and follow no road is the first step toward attaining Tao. The mind remains undetermined in The Great Void. Here, the highest knowledge is unbounded. That which gives things their thusness cannot be delimited by things, so when we speak of limits we remain confined to limited things. The limit of the unlimited is called fullness. The limitlessness of the limited is called emptiness. Tao is the source of both, but it is itself neither fullness nor emptiness.
What is fasting of the heart? The goal of fasting is inner unity. This means hearing, but not with the ear. Hearing, but not with the understanding. Hearing with the spirit, with your whole being.
The hearing of the spirit is not limited to any one faculty — to the ear, or to the mind. Hence it demands the emptiness of all the faculties; and when the faculties are empty, then the whole being listens…
There is then a direct grasp of what is right there, before you — that can never be heard with the ear, or understood with the mind. Fasting of the heart empties the faculties, frees you from limitation and from preoccupation. Fasting of the heart begets unity and freedom. What is standing in your way is your own self-consciousness. If you can begin this fasting of the heart, self-consciousness will vanish.
All that is limited by form, semblance, sound, color — is called object. Among them all, humans alone are more than an object; though, like objects, they have form and semblance — but they are not limited to form, they are more. They can attain to formlessness.
When they are beyond form and semblance, beyond this and that, where is the comparison with another object? Where is the conflict? What can stand in their way? They will rest in their eternal place, which is no place. They will be hidden in their own unfathomable secret. Their nature sinks to its root in The One. Their vitality, their power, hide in secret Tao.
The non-action of the wise is not inaction; it is not studied — it is not shaken by anything. The sage is quiet because they are not moved, not because they will to be quiet. Still water is like glass, you can look in it and see the bristles on your chin. It is a perfect level: a carpenter could use it. If water is so clear, so level — how much more the spirit of humans? The heart of the wise is tranquil; it is the mirror of heaven and earth — the glass of everything.
Emptiness, stillness, tranquility, tastelessness, silence, nonaction — this is the level of heaven and earth. This is perfect Tao. The wise find here their resting place. Resting, they are empty.
From emptiness comes the unconditioned. From this, the conditioned, the individual things. So from the sage’s emptiness, stillness arises. From stillness, action. From action, attainment. From their stillness, comes their nonaction, which is also action — and is, therefore, their attainment. For stillness is joy. Joy is free from care, fruitful in long years. Joy does all things without concern. For emptiness, stillness, tranquility, tastelessness, silence and nonaction — are the root of all things.