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court disaster.
Now the sutra:
ATTAIN THE UTMOST IN PASSIVITY,
HOLD FIRM TO THE BASIS OF QUIETUDE.
THE MYRIAD THINGS TAKE SHAPE AND RISE TO ACTIVITY,
BUT I WATCH THEM FALL BACK TO THEIR REPOSE.
LIKE VEGETATION THAT LUXURIANTLY GROWS
BUT RETURNS TO THE ROOT (SOIL) FROM WHICH IT SPRINGS.
TO RETURN TO THE ROOT IS REPOSE;
IT IS CALLED GOING BACK TO ONE'S DESTINY.
GOING BACK TO ONE'S DESTINY IS TO FIND THE ETERNAL LAW.
To know Tao is Enlightenment.
And not to know the Eternal Law, Tao,
Is to court disaster.
Now many things have to be understood.
First, THE UTMOST IN PASSIVITY. Death is a passivity. Death is the utmost in passivity. You will not be able to do anything. That's how we judge when a man is dead -- he cannot breathe, he cannot open his eyes, he cannot talk, he cannot move. How do you judge when a man is dead? He cannot do anything, he is THE UTMOST IN PASSIVITY. A dead man is absolutely passive, he cannot do anything.
I am reminded of a story. One day Mulla Nasrudin said to himself: Some people are dead when they seem to be alive, and others are alive although they seem to be dead. How can we tell if a man is dead or if he is alive? He repeated the last sentence so loudly that his wife heard. She said to him: You fool! If the hands and feet are quite cold you will know that he is dead.
A few days later, Nasrudin was cutting wood in the forest when he realized that his extremities were almost frozen by the bitter cold. He said: Death now seems to be upon me. But the dead do not cut wood, they should lie down, respectably, because they don't need physical movement. He lay down under a tree.
Just then a pack of wolves, who were very hungry because of the harsh winter, passed by. Thinking that Mulla was dead they jumped on his donkey and ate it.
`Such is life,' thought Mulla. `One thing is conditional upon another. If I had been alive you would not have taken such liberties with my donkey'.
Death is passivity. You cannot do anything. If one is trying to learn how to die -- and that is the same as trying to learn, they are
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