the Dao of Atheism :jeffers' petroglyph, pre-dakota, minnesota : the Shaman Atheist 78/81

78

Nothing is softer, more flexible, or more giving than
water
nothing can resist it
nothing can take it away
nothing can endure it
there is no way to hurt it.

The flexible overcomes what resists it,
the giving overcomes what takes it,
the soft overcomes the hard,
but who uses this knowledge?


Only the person who knows the earth
as intimately as the trees and grasses
can rule the earth,
only the person who accepts
the guilt and evil of humanity
can rule the universe.

Straight tongues seem forked.
Straight talk seems crooked.

The simpleton who succeeds where the trained and mighty have failed is a common theme in Western literature. Jesus, as a boy and as a man, confused the rabbis and Romans with his simple talk. The boy Arthur could remove and replace a sword in stone that no knight could. Chance, a simple, almost idiot, gardener in Kozinsky's Being There, rose to become a presidential candidate by speaking of only what he knew intimately -- his garden.

Atheism is the simplest religious experience
an innocence to foreign dictates
an openness to all things possible
the origin of all wondering




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©1992 tpkunesh@atheisms.info