The Timeless Instant between End and Beginning

It is like the node of the winter’s middle month,
when all bamboos and trees are wasted and injured.
As he attends to the Yang, and forbids travel and trade,
the ruler stays in deep seclusion:
complying with the ordinances in accord with the time,
he closes his mouth and does not use it for talking.

Vast and broad is the Way of Heaven,
and the Great Mystery has no form or appearance.
None can behold its emptiness and silence,
as it disappears within its own walls.

Commit an error, and you lose the thread of your pursuit;
your words turn against you and injure you.
One by one pursue these four images,
and awaken from blindness the students to come.

Source: Cantong qi (Seal of the Unity of the Three), poem 85.