Observations placeholder
Neiye - Verse 09
Identifier
027478
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
A description of the experience
Extract from the Guanzi (管子) : THE INNER ENTERPRISE (Neiye內業) - translation by Robert Eno
The Dao fills the world and spreads through everywhere that people dwell,
yet the people cannot understand it.
Through the explanation of a single phrase
one may penetrate to heaven, reach the limits of the earth,
and coil through all the nine regions.
What is this explanation?
It lies in setting the heart at rest.
When our hearts are regulated, the senses are regulated as well.
When our hearts are at rest, the senses are at rest as well.
What regulates the senses is the heart;
what places the senses at rest is the heart.
By means of the heart, a heart is enclosed – within the heart there is yet another heart.
Within that heart’s core the sound of a thought is first to speak:
after the sound of thought, it takes shape,
taking shape, there is speech,
with speech, there is action,
with action, there is order.
Without order, there must be disruption,
and with disruption, there is death