Ungrasped

Notes

By the editor.

1. Dao De Jing, chapter 48: learning adds something each day, while practicing the Dao means that every day there is something to lose, until one reaches non-action. The poem's order is the chapter's: abandon first, and what remains is the thing you were after. source ↩
2. The Heart Sutra lists the teachings themselves, the five aggregates, the Four Noble Truths, and says that in emptiness there is “no attainment and no non-attainment.” What is left when all of it falls away is not another thing to grasp. source ↩
3. A Zhuangzi story (chapter 12) has the Yellow Emperor lose his pearl. Knowledge, Keen Vision and Argument search for it and fail; the one who finds it is a figure whose name Giles renders as “Nothing.” The point is the poem's: what you cannot find by reaching for it turns up when you stop. source ↩