October 17, 2026

Contemplate The Return

Empty your mind of all thoughts. Let your heart be at peace. Watch the turmoil of beings, but contemplate their return. Each separate being in the universe returns to the common source. Returning to the source is serenity.

Lao Tzu is the legendary sage credited with the Tao Te Ching, said to have served as a court archivist in Zhou dynasty China before the growing political chaos of his era led him to leave society and set down his teaching before vanishing west. This passage, from chapter sixteen, instructs the student to empty the mind and watch the restless activity of life, not to get swept into it but to notice where it all eventually leads, back to a single quiet source. Lao Tzu calls that return serenity, the same stillness the muddy-water teaching points to, where clarity comes not from forcing an answer but from letting the mind settle enough to see what was already there. In the Taoist and broader Eastern wisdom view, stillness is an active practice, a willingness to stop interfering with the mind's own tendency to settle, the way silt sinks once water is left undisturbed. Practiced daily, this stillness becomes the ground for right perception and right action, since a mind still in motion cannot see clearly what is already true.

A principle of Eastern Wisdom: Stillness →