Page 13 - Zen Tzu
P. 13

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                    Thinking invents distinctions and then chases them in
               circles until the confusion is overwhelming. Not until thinking
               stops by entering emptiness does its confusion become evident.

                    Meaning has created the distinctions of high and low, long
               and short, front and back, difficult and easy, sound and silence,
               now and then, here and there, this and that. Then, from all this
               meddling comes self and other, as if the wholeness of the inner
               and the outer could be broken into separate parts—as if all these
               parts were not each other.

                    Since thoughts fill emptiness with distinctions, allow the
               confusion of thinking to confound itself, to quietly reach the end
               of understanding. In the stillness of thoughts emptied of thoughts
               is a waiting clarity. Beginnings begin at the end of endings.

                    Without understanding, where is the struggle for certainty?
               Without certainty, where is the incentive for opinions? Without
               opinions, where is the requirement for judgments? And without
               judgments, where is the need for distinctions?

                    Without answers, where are questions? Without questions,
               where are doubts? Without doubts, where is thinking? And then,
               without thinking, where is confusion?




























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