Have in your hold the great image
and the empire will come to you.
Coming to you and meeting with no harm
it will be safe and sound.
Music and food
will induce the wayfarer to stop.
The way in its passage through the mouth is without flavor;
it cannot be seen,
it cannot be heard,
yet it cannot be exhausted by use.
The small image is the image that, brilliant and precise though its reflection might be, only reflects certain images and ideas. The great image is the image that does not refuse to reflect but blankly, openly, without protest, takes in whatever is before it but has no desire to possess what is reflected. The great image denies nothing, affirms nothing, is blind to nothing, desires nothing because it desires everything.
If one holds the great image and nothing else, one holds only reflections, but all reflections. Hence, the empire meets with no harm because it has already been reflected in its entirety—its contradictions, horrors, and potencies. To one who holds this way, it is neither a threat nor a joy; it is just another concatenation of images.
It’s not the flavorless way that induces wayfarers to stop, but the myriad manifestations of the way—not the no-desire but the desire. Flavor and dancing emerge from flavorlessness, invisibility, silence, and stillness; hospitality and seduction are reflective moons around the great voided sun. Void reflects voids which reflect void … safety and soundness rest on an empty infinite foundation. The soul, like the universe, is a replete emptiness.
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