One who strives to make Truth home
May at times be lonely.
One who fawns on the powerful and influential
Will know the chill of solitude for ages.
The superior person peers deeply into
Transcendent reality,
And thinks about the body
They will have after this one is gone.
Rather should one suffer a temporary loneliness
Than the solitary chill of ages.
— Hung Ying-ming
Ying-ming's words settle quietly in my mind, like the sound of one hand clapping.
For years I have listened skeptically to the voices that promised certainty: the reports, the pronouncements, the endless noise of official explanation.
They spoke with certainty, yet the words felt as substantial as a vaporous breath on an icy cold day.
Gradually I have stopped listening. Not out of anger, but because my heart found no sanctuary in those places.
Now I sit with what nature has revealed to me.
The wind moves the branches without apology.
The stream directs the flow without asking permission.
The breath rises and falls, steady and unconcerned with opinion.
Here there is no need for deception, no need for playing make believe to force things to be true. Nature simply shows itself.
And inside, the same stillness waits — the quiet knowing that does not need to be convinced.
The mind, of course, is skilled at weaving its own tales, at building walls of belief to feel safe. It is a lonely and brave quest to surmount those walls.
Yet the loneliness of seeing clearly still feels lighter than the burden of living inside a narrative that is not one’s own.
The chill of ages comes not from solitude, but from clinging to what was never truly yours.
So I return, again and again, to what is already here: the trees, the breath, the silence between thoughts.
No explanation is required.
Much can be found in what is already here, in the quiet moments, in a sunny blue sky, in the simple pulse of being.
What does nature, outside you and inside you, whisper to you these days?
