Taosim Corner Thoughts -------- My mind moves slowly - painfully grinding and turning ....Producing garbage. Struggling to find peace i drown, yet cannot die... I fall forever to a death that will never come..a slave forever. Yet again the seeds of doubt have bee sown...again they grow Slowly picking aways and crumbling my mind..my logic. Several things have been tried and have failed. Ignorence? After a certain point, it is impossibe to forget To close my mind to what is and what will be. Knowledge? So far it has only made my burden a heavier one ..By lightening for a time and then adding double what was taken. Religion? Their games frustrate me - each religion bitterly fighting For my soul..my mind and my body. Love? Odd comodity that is is....perhaps one that not all were meant to have. Those who find it pure are truly blessed, for part of themselves is found. Those who struggle for it often bleed and die...the worst torture? (kmHjltk) Those who have not....? With each item somehow misused..what have i done? I have begun to kill myself, slow though it may be.... Or is my death just a vain atempt to gather people's sympathy? Fuck it........fuck everything.....to let go....?!?!!!!?? What to do....what to do? How to stop pretending..be real. ..i m weak Aug 25th, 1999 1:24 am -------------- -Email Endings... ------------------------------------------------------------ "At the origin of things there was Thunder(Shu), ruler of the Southern Ocean and Bolt(Hu), ruler of the Northern Ocean. And in the Middle Realm, PrimalDark (Hun Tun) ruled. Thunder and Bolt often met together in the lands of PrimalDark, and PrimalDark was always a most gracious host. Eventually, Thunder and Bolt tried to think of a way to repay PrimalDark's kindness. They said: "People have seven holes so they can see and hear, eat and breathe. Only PrimalDark is without them. Why don't we try cutting some for her?" So ThunderBolt began cutting holes, one each day. On the seventh day, PrimalDark was dead." The Way of Emporers and Kings (last story),The Inner Chapters, by Chuang Tzu ----------------------------------------------------------- "Adept Offering (Tzu Szu), Adept Cart (Tzu Y�), Adept Plowshare (Tzu Li), and Adept Arrival (Tzu Lai) met one day. Talking together, they said: "Who can make non-being their head, life their spine, and death their butt? Who can understand that birth and death, living and dead are one body? Such people make true friends." The four of them looked at each at each other and laughed. There was no disparity in their minds: they were friends. Before long, Adept Cart got sick. When Adept Offering came to ask how he was doing, Cart said: "It's amazing! The Maker-of-Things is crumpling me up into such an embrace: a crooked hump sticking out of my back, vital organs bulging over, chin tucked into belly, sholders topping skull, nape pointed at sky. And my ch'i - its yin and yang seem all out of whack." Still, his mind remained calm and unconcerned. He hobled over to a well, looked at himself in the water, and said: "It's incredible! The Maker-of-Things just keeps crumpling me up into his embrace!" "Do you resent it?" asked Adept Offering. "No, why should i resnt it?" replied Adept Cart. "If my left arm's transformed into a rooster, I'll just go looking for night's end. If my right arm's transformed into a crossbow, I'll just go looking for owls to roast. And if my butt's transformed into a pair of wheels and my spirit's transformed into a horse, I'll just ride away! I'll never need a cart again! "This life we're given comes in its own season, and then follows its vanishing away. If you're at ease in your season, if you can dwell in its vanishing, joy and sorrow never touch you. This is what the acients called getting free. If you can't get free, you're tangled in things. And things have never overcome heaven. So what is there to resent?" Before long, Adept Arrival got sick. As he lay gasping and weezing on the verge of death, his wife and children crowded around, sobbing. When Adept Plowshare came to ask how Arrival was doing, Plowshare shouted: "Out of the way! Shoo! Don't pester change in the making!" Then, leaning against the door, he said to Adept Arrival: "It's amazing - that Maker-of-Things! What will it make of you next? Where will it send you? Will it make you into a rat's liver? Will it make you into a bug's arm?" Our parents are part of us," said Adept Arrival. "East and west, north and south - wherever we go, we follow their wishes. And we obey yin and yang even more completely. They've brought me here to the brink of death, and to resist their wishes would be insolence. How could i blame them for this? "This Mighty Mudball of a world burdens us with a body, troubles us with life, eases us with old age, and with death gives us rest. We call our life a blessing, so our death must be a blessing too. "Suppose a mighty metalsmith cast a piece of metal and the metal jumped up and said No, no - i must be one of those legendary Mo-yeh swords! Wouldn't the metalsmith consider it ominous metal? And suppose, having chanced upon human form, i insist Human, human, and nothing but human! Wouldn't the Maker-of-Change consider me an ominous person? I see heaven and earth as a mighty foundry and the Maker-of-Change as a mighty metalsmith - so wherever they send me, how could i ever complain? I'll sleep soundly - and then suddenly i'll wake" from: The Great Ancestral Master, The Inner Chapters by Chuang Tzu ------------------------------------------------------------