Sublime

emulate the sparrow, the “wisest of birds.” According to the Zhuangzi, “If its eyes do not spot a suitable place, it will not look twice. If it happens to drop the nut it is carrying, it will simply abandon it and continue on its way. It is wary of people, and yet it lives among them, protected within the altars of grain and soil.”

Although the ch’iang-hsing (striving hard) of line six seems at odds with Lao-tzu’s dictum of wu-wei, “doing nothing/effortlessness,” commentators are agreed that here it refers to inner cultivation and not to the pursuit of worldly goals.

Note: According to the biography of the ninth-century poet-recluse Lu Kuei-meng , as recorded in the Hsintangshu (New History of the T’ang Dynasty),

But his name was not Lao-tzu, which means “Old Master.” Ssu-ma Ch’ien says his family name was Li, his personal name was Erh (meaning “ear,” hence, learned), and his posthumous name was Tan (meaning “long-eared,” hence, wise).

And in the land of the cuckoo, Lao-tzu finally achieved anonymity as well as immortality.