Sacred Books of the East Vol. 40: Taoism Vol. 2

In the position which the True man occupies, he has his adversities and prosperities, his successes and defeats, his gains and his losses, his seasons of security and of unrest, all the changes of his circumstances; but his mind forgets them all, and this result is due to his possession of both the Knowledge and the Tâo. As to his bodily conditions, he has his sleeping and {p. 281} awaking, his eating and resting,--his constant experiences; but his mind (also) forgets them all. For the springs of action which move to the touch of Heaven, and the movements of desire are indeed different in men; but when we advance and examine the proper home of the mind, we find no difference between its place and nature at the time of birth and of death, and no complication in these after birth and before death:--so it is that the Mind, the Tâo, the Heavenly, and the Human are simply One. Is not the unconsciousness of the mind the way in which the True man exercises his knowledge and nourishes it? Carrying out this unconsciousness, from the mind to the body and from the body to the world, he comprehends the character of the time and the requirements of everything, without any further qualification. Hence, while the mind has not acquired this oblivion, the great work of life always suffers from some defect of the mind, and is not fit to be commended. But let the mind be able to exercise this quality, and it can be carried out with great and successful merit, and its admirable service be completed. This is the mind of the True man, never exercised one-sidedly in the world, and gaining no one-sided victory either Heavenward or Manward.