Saturday

dao vantage


vantage
Chinese for "vantage"
incredible mythical beast, beyond description (do see info below!)

Chinese characters for "Mythical animal "

Chinese characters for "Chu State, Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn period"



Distant ridges, far away clouds
All events come from a distance.
With a high vantage point,
Foretelling the future is elementary.


It is often superstitiously said that one who follows Tao knows magic. This is nonsense. Wisdom* is simply a matter of using the best of one’s abilities and being in the right position. for example, a wise person who lives high in the mountains and who is not blinded by wine, sensuality, intellectuality, poor health, or greed will be better able to see events in the distance than one who loves in a closed room, eyes on some obscure project.

A storm does not happen abruptly; it takes hours, sometimes days, to develop. Travelers do not arrive suddenly; they can be seen from a distance. Knowing things in advance is possible with a high vantage point. For this reason, the followers of Tao appear to know magic.



vantage
365 Tao
daily meditations
Deng Ming-Dao (author)
ISBN 0-06-250223-9
* I have changed the text "superiority"
to "wisdom" here.


the artwork shown here is simply too smaill to appreciate
the beauty of this piece. I urge you to visit the archived page
http://www.duckdaotsu.org/2/vantage.html



Chinese characters for "Mythical animal "
Chinese characters for "Chu State, Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn period"
Mythical animal
Excavated in Xujialing, Xichuan county, Henan Province, in 1990
Chu State, Eastern Zhou, Spring and Autumn period,
770 — 476 BCE
Bronze inlaid with malachite
height 48 cm
This fantastical animal, which is one of a pair, may have served as a drum stand. It is composed of a tiger's body and a dragon's head, on which six small dragons writhe. On its back stands another animal, a dragon emerging from its mouth. The body is inlaid with malachite in the form of dragons, phoenixes, and spirals, which add to the feeling of frenzied movement.
Institute of Archeology and Cultural Relics, Henan Province



T A O t e C H I N G

hand drawn calligraphy of the word dao
f i v e
daodejing verse 5

Nature is not kind;
It treats all things impartially.
The Sage is not kind,
And treats all people impartially.
Nature is like a bellows,
Empty, yet never ceasing its supply.
The more it moves, the more it yields;
So the sage draws upon experience
And cannot be exhausted.



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