From the book Master of the Three Ways (菜根譚) by Hong Zicheng:
A single cloud leaves the peaks:
Going or staying, with neither is it tangled.
A bright mirror like moon hangs in the sky:
Peace or noise, with neither is it concerned.
I must have read the above passage twenty times before, without really grasping what it was meant to convey. The twenty-first time, though, I was ready.
Though I started the passage with my mind filled with turbulent thoughts, I ended it calm and at peace.
It was, I think, the part about the moon; for some reason as I read that I was on the Moon looking back at the Earth. It was deathly silent. And my troubles seemed, like The Beatles’ the day before, so far away.
