SELECTIONS TRANSLATED BY WITTER BYNNER
Existence is beyond the power of words to define:
Terms may be used
but are none of them absolute.
In the beginning
of heaven and earth were no words,
Words came out of the womb of matter.
Wu Ji
The five colours can blind,
The five tones
deafen,
The five tastes
cloy.
The race, the hunt, can drive men mad,
And their booty
leave them no peace.
There is no need to run outside for better seeing,
Nor to peer from a
window. Rather abide
At the centre of
your being.
You Ji
The breath of life moves through a deathless valley
Of mysterious
motherhood
Which conceives
and bears the universal seed,
The seeming of a world never to end,
Breath for men to
draw from as they will:
And the more they
take of it, the more remains.
Tai Ji
"Yield and you need not break":
Bent you can
straighten,
Emptied you can
hold,
Torn you can
mend.
Man, born tender and yielding,
Stiffens and
hardens in death.
All living growth is pliant,
Until death
transfixes it.
What is more fluid, more yielding than water?
Yet back it comes
again, wearing down the rigid strength,
Which cannot yield to withstand it.
So it is that the
strong are overcome by the weak,
The haughty by
the humble.
As the soft yield of water cleaves obstinate stone,
So to yield with
life solves the insoluble:
To yield, I have learned, is to come back again.
But this unworded
lesson,
This easy example, is lost upon men.
Men of stamina, knowing the way of life,
Steadily keep to it.
"White appears black", "enough is a lack", endurance is a
weakness,
Simplicity a faded flower.
But eternity is his who goes straight round the circle,
Foundation is his who can feel beyond touch,
Harmony is his who can hear beyond sound,
Pattern is his who can see beyond shape:
Life is his who can tell beyond words - fulfillment of the unfulfilled.
Tai Ji Quan technique
and Dao De Jing
Gravity is the root of grace,
The mainstay of all
speed.
Before it move, hold it,
Before it go wrong, mould it.
From start to finish and finish to start
The circle rounding
perfectly.
The best captain does not plunge headlong
Nor is the best
soldier a fellow hot to fight.
The greatest
victor wins without a battle:
He who
overcomes men understands them.
There is a quality of quietness
Which quickens people by no stress.
Tai Ji Quan students
Those who know do not tell,
Those who tell do
not know.
Not to set the
tongue loose
But to curb it.
Tai Ji Quan atmosphere
What we look for beyond seeing and call the unseen,
Listen for beyond hearing and call the unheard,
Grasp for beyond reaching and call the withheld,
Merge beyond
understanding
In a oneness.
The Tai Ji Quan student’s
face
If the sign of life is in your face
He who responds to it will feel secure and fit.
The achievement
One who would guide a leader of men in the uses of life
Will warn him
against the use of arms for conquest.
Weapons often turn
upon the wielder,
An army’s harvest is a waste of thorns …
… A good general, daring to march, dares also to halt,
Will never press his triumph beyond need.
What he must do he does but not for glory,
What he must do he does but not for show,
What he must do he does but not for self.
Knowledge studies others,
Wisdom is
self-known;
Muscle masters brothers,
Self-mastery is
bone.
To know yourself and not show yourself,
To think well of yourself and not tell of yourself.
Tai Ji Quan students and
their technique
The handbook of the strategist has said:
"Do not invite the fight, accept it instead",
"Better a foot behind than an inch too far ahead", which
means:
Look a man straight in the face and make no move,
Roll up your sleeve and clench no fist,
Open your hand and show no weapon,
Bear your breast and find no foe.
But as long as there
be a foe, value him,
Respect him,
measure him, be humble toward him;
Let him not strip
from you, however strong he be,
Compassion, the one
wealth which can afford him.
Tai Ji Quan students’
appearance-attitude
A man of sure fitness, without making a point of his
fitness, stays fit;
A man of unsure fitness, assuming an appearance of fitness,
becomes unfit.
The man of sure fitness never makes an act of it
Nor considers what it may profit him;
The man of unsure fitness makes an act of it
And considers what it may profit him.
Conclusion
Real words are not vain, vain words not real; and since
those who argue prove nothing a sensible man does not argue. A sensible man is
wiser than he knows, while a fool knows more than is wise. Therefore a sensible
man does not devise resources: the greater his use to others the greater their
use to him, the more he yields to others the more they yield to him. The way of
life cleaves without cutting: which, without need to say, should be man’s way.
