I am one who at times has trouble in just letting things go. I will try to hold on to what is troubling me, but I will also try to hold on to what seems to be going well. I will cling to both criticism and praise, so I risk identifying myself with what I am hearing, or think I am hearing. Jesus would call this worrying. When I hear him ask, "Who among you by worrying can add a single moment to your life (Matthew 6:27)?", I have no answer. I am amazed I have made it this far.
I will include Chapter 2 in its entirety. Sometimes The Master is given a masculine pronoun, sometimes feminine. Stephen Mitchell writes that the Chinese language makes no such distinction.
When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When people see some things as good,
other things become bad.
Being and non-being create one another.
Difficult and easy support one another.
Long and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and after follow each other.
Therefore the Master
acts without doing anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets them go.
She has but doesn't possess,
acts but doesn't expect.
When her work is done, she forgets it.
That's why it lasts forever.
photograph: San Leandro, November 2020
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