Awakening to Reality: Poem 1

 

If you do not search for the Great Dao
and do not leave the delusive paths,
you may be endowed with worthiness and talent,
but would you be a great man?

One hundred years of age
are a spark sent forth from a stone,
a whole lifetime
is a bubble floating on the water.

You only covet profit and emolument
and search for nothing more than glory and fame,
without considering that your body
covertly withers and decays.

Let me ask you — Even if you pile up gold
as high as one of the sacred mountains,
bribing impermanence would be impossible,
wouldn't it?

Source: Wuzhen pian (Awakening to Reality), poem 1.

 

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