| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: themselves). It is through their not being full of themselves that
they can afford to seem worn and not appear new and complete.
16. 1. The (state of) vacancy should be brought to the utmost degree,
and that of stillness guarded with unwearying vigour. All things
alike go through their processes of activity, and (then) we see them
return (to their original state). When things (in the vegetable
world) have displayed their luxuriant growth, we see each of them
return to its root. This returning to their root is what we call the
state of stillness; and that stillness may be called a reporting that
they have fulfilled their appointed end.
2. The report of that fulfilment is the regular, unchanging rule. To
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Kreutzer Sonata by Leo Tolstoy: as those which appeal to sensuality by adorning the body as our
companions do were allowed. As well set traps along our public
streets, or worse than that.
CHAPTER X.
"That, then, was the way in which I was captured. I was in
love, as it is called; not only did she appear to me a perfect
being, but I considered myself a white blackbird. It is a
commonplace fact that there is no one so low in the world that he
cannot find some one viler than himself, and consequently puff
with pride and self-contentment. I was in that situation. I did
The Kreutzer Sonata |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sesame and Lilies by John Ruskin: passions, or the height of our pride, are we able to understand in
its depth the third and most solemn character in which our life is
like those clouds of heaven; that to it belongs not only their
transcience, not only their mystery, but also their power; that in
the cloud of the human soul there is a fire stronger than the
lightning, and a grace more precious than the rain; and that though
of the good and evil it shall one day be said alike, that the place
that knew them knows them no more, there is an infinite separation
between those whose brief presence had there been a blessing, like
the mist of Eden that went up from the earth to water the garden,
and those whose place knew them only as a drifting and changeful
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