Sublime

If you have insight, says Chuang-tzu, “you use your inner eye, your inner ear, to pierce to the heart of things, and have no need of intellectual knowledge.”11

The reason for this is that I envisioned this book as a conversation between Lao-tzu and a group of people who have thought deeply about his text. And I wanted to have everyone, including the reader, in the same room, rather than in adjoining suites.

1

WU CH’ENG says, “The Tao’s lack of effort is ancient and eternal and not simply temporary. Although it makes no effort, it does everything it should do. If rulers could uphold this Tao of effortlessness, without consciously thinking about changing others, others would change by themselves.

76

CONFUCIUS says, “The gentleman is not a tool” (Lunyu: 2.12).

The Taoist philosopher Chuang-tzu described such efforts to be ego-less as “beating a drum in search of a fugitive,” or, as we would put it, driving to a police raid with sirens on.

SU CH’E says, “Darkness is what penetrates everything but what cannot itself be perceived. To be careful means to act only after taking precautions. To be cautious means to refrain from acting because of doubt or suspicion. Melting ice reminds us how the myriad things arise from delusion and never stay still. Uncarved wood reminds us to put an end

HUANG YUAN-CHI says, “Those who cultivate the Way should act with humility and harmony. The slightest carelessness, any action at all, can destroy everything. Those who cultivate Virtue look to themselves for the truth, not to the words of others. For those who understand that what moves them is also the source of their lives, the pill of immortali