Reflections on the Dao (Lao-Tzu)

Ingredients:

Verses 1-25 of Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching (Daodejing) in haiku form.

The image is "Mysterious Portal" by Baron Arild Rosenkrantz.

Directions:

1.
Behind words and names
Are the nameless origins
And the gate of Truth.

2.
Teach without words, for
Knowledge creates opposites.
Act smooth – don’t attach!

3.
Show no preferences!
Empty minds and fill bellies
For natural order.

4.
Inexhaustible,
The soft mother of all things,
Deep, still and timeless.

5.
Nature lacks humour.
It thrives in empty spaces
In the fertile mean.

6.
The valley spirit,
Ever last, ever present,
She produces all.

7.
Masters and planets
Live for the Way, not themselves,
So long they endure.

8.
Be fresh like water,
Nourishing, not comparing,
Supple, and go deep.

9.
Don’t overdo it.
When your task is done, step back!
Such is Heaven’s Way.

10.
Can you breathe softly,
Birthing, but not possessing?
This is true Virtue.

11.
Some things have value,
But power lies in empty space
Open to intent.

12.
Senses overwhelm.
Be satisfied and look in
To waken insight.

13.
He who loves himself
And respects his own suffering,
You can trust the world.

14.
An unceasing thread,
Merging in One formless form,
Thus begins the Way.

15.
The Masters of old,
No doubt seemed muddy like fools,
Unrefined, unknown.

16.
Emptiness boundless,
Centred in stillness, in fate
One sees what’s constant.

17.
The best kings are known,
The next best are loved and praised,
The worst are hated.

18.
When the Dao is lost,
We find the concepts of love
Replace the real thing.

19.
Knowledge, craft, planning,
Rid the people of these three,
Embrace the genuine!

20.
Indifferent and still,
Like a child who’s not yet smiled,
I drink my Mother.

21.
The utmost life force
Shapeless, formless, trace it back
To the obscure source.

24.
Those who overreach,
Affirming self, lose their ground.
So they are toppled.

22.
An old paradox,
“Bend over, you’ll be kept whole.”
In wholeness, you shine.

23.
One with death finds death,
One with life finds life, so too
One with Virtue’s Way.

25.
Four great mirrors are:
Man, Earth, Heaven and the Dao.
The Dao is in all.