Empty yourself of everything. Let the mind become still. The ten thousand things rise and fall while the Self watches their return. They grow and flourish and then return to the source. Returning to the source is stillness, which is the way of nature.
The past has no power to stop you from being present now. Only your grievance about the past can do that. What is grievance? The baggage of old thought and emotion.
What is a good man but a bad man’s teacher? What is a bad man but a good man’s job? If you do not remember this, You will get lost, No matter how intelligent you are. It is the great secret.
In the highest antiquity, the people did not know that there were rulers. In the next age they loved them and praised them. In the next they feared them; in the next they despised them.
. . . the mind is desperate to fix the river {of events} in place: Possessed by ideas of the past, preoccupied with images of the future, it overlooks the plain truth of the moment.
![Laozi Quote - Take [preventive] action before things happen. Establish order before disorder has begun.](https://minimalistquotes.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/take-preventive-action-before-things-happen-establ-1-683x1024.jpg)
