Everything was burning. Today it was the bodies; tomorrow it would be the spirit.
Montesquieu wrote: “I have never known any distress that an hour of reading did not relieve.” If one substituted the word music for reading, the exact same dictum applied to me.
The Chinese are well acquainted with this way of seeing things; they often use the image of water to illustrate it. To see down to the bottom of a lake, the water must be calm and still. The calmer the water, the farther down one can see. The exact same thing is true for the mind – the more tranquil and detached one is, the greater the depths one can plumb.
The best man is like water. Water is good, it benefits all things and does not compete with them. It dwells in lowly places that all disdain. This is why it is so near to Tao.